Would you drive your car with your eyes closed? Of course not. But when it comes to their business, many owners choose to wear a blindfold, by ignoring all the benefits of call tracking – yes there are many but here we will list 15 most important ones. They have created a massive hole in their marketing data and are driving right into it.
It is not an overstatement to say that your entire marketing strategy could be based on dangerously incorrect assumptions, if you aren’t accurately tracking calls to your business. Calls are not just one stage in the sales funnel.
For a huge number of businesses, they are the most important part of it. In fact, a recent study by BIA Kelsey showed that a phone call was 10 – 15 times more likely to result in a sale compared to other contact points. And correctly allocating your marketing spend is just one benefit oft call tracking today. Below we’ll look at 15 more. But first, a quick primer on what is call tracking.
What is Call Tracking?
Well, of course people call you, based on your instinct you know that something you’ve done is working. But how is this translated to actionable insights and results? Call tracking helps you translate your gut into actions allowing you to adopt a quality-first approach by prioritizing the most high-value source based on your leads quality.
Call Tracking Definition
Call tracking refers to the technology that enables the monitoring and recording of inbound phone calls. It’s essentially a system that uncovers how callers discovered your business. By assigning unique phone numbers to different marketing channels, Marketers can pinpoint which ads, campaigns, or search keywords are generating calls. This data is critical because it shows you what’s working in your marketing strategy and what’s not.
💡 For the complete Call Tracking Guide, check out this step-by-step guide.
Why is call tracking important for your business?
There are numerous reasons why call tracking is essential for your business. But first, let’s understand the core need. Phone leads often present a significant challenge for marketers due to accidental clicks on click-to-call CTAs, wrong numbers, missed calls, and hang-ups. These issues can make it difficult to gauge the true impact of your phone calls accurately.
Even if we assume every lead successfully connects with your business, not all phone calls are equal. Some may result in sales, others may require follow-up calls, some are support inquiries, others seek additional information, and some aim to book appointments. How can you track these diverse conversions and link them to the generated revenue?
Daily, businesses in industries like Automotive, Healthcare, Real Estate, or Legal Services receive numerous calls. It’s crucial to not only track these phone leads, but also understand the impact each one has on your business and its actual revenue contribution. Call tracking helps bridge this gap by providing detailed insights into the effectiveness and financial impact of your phone interactions.
15 top benefits of call tracking
Call Tracking is something that every business should utilize. From small businesses to large corporations, call tracking can benefit businesses of every size. So, what are the benefits of call tracking?
The 15 Call Tracking Benefits at a glance
- High ROI
- Immediate Insights
- Accurate Lead Tracking
- Not Killing what is working
- Find more quality leads
- Mapping the whole lead journey
- Enhance Local Presence
- Improve Customer & Caller Experience
- Get Content Ideas
- Adapt better to mobile-first approach
- CRM Data Enrichment
- Increase Website Engagement & Conversions
- Learn more about your customers
- Rich Reporting & Analytics
- Sales & Marketing Alignment
👇 let’s explore them one by one 👇
1. High ROI
Why it can be beneficial: Call tracking allows businesses to accurately measure the return on investment for various marketing campaigns. By understanding which channels and strategies generate the most valuable phone leads, you can allocate your budget more effectively, maximizing your marketing efficiency and overall ROI.
Impact of High ROI to your business:
- Better budget allocation
- Increased profitability
- Enhanced marketing efficiency
2. Immediate Insights
Why it can be beneficial: Call tracking provides immediate insights from day one, allowing you to quickly see the impact of your marketing efforts. This rapid feedback helps you make prompt adjustments to optimize your strategies and ensure that your campaigns are effective from the start.
Impact of Immediate Insights to your business:
- Faster optimization of marketing strategies
- Immediate understanding of campaign performance
- Quick identification of successful channels
3. Accurate Lead Tracking
Why it can be beneficial: Call tracking ensures that every lead is accurately recorded and attributed back to its source. This level of detail helps you understand which marketing efforts are truly driving engagement and allows for more precise analysis and optimization of your strategies.
Impact of Accurate Lead Tracking to your business:
- Improved lead management
- Better understanding of lead sources
- Enhanced campaign effectiveness
4. Not Killing What is Working
Why it can be beneficial: This leads to the most important aspects of measuring calls. Making sure you are not killing your best performing marketing campaigns. Imagine you are running a Facebook ads campaign. Your business appears to be thriving, but when you look at your Google Analytics all of the contact form submissions seem to be generated by your Google Ads.
In contrast, Facebook hardly appears to be generating any leads at all. You decide to hit the kill switch on your Facebook ads. Shortly thereafter, business starts to crater. What went wrong? Chances are it’s because you weren’t measuring calls. Those Facebook ads could have been the source. If you aren’t tracking them, you’ll miss this critical piece of information.
Impact of Not Killing What is Working to your business:
- Sustained successful campaigns
- Maximized marketing efficiency
- Reduced wasted efforts
5. Find More Quality Leads
Why it can be beneficial: By analyzing call data, you can identify patterns and characteristics of high-quality leads. This information allows you to refine your targeting and messaging to attract more of these valuable prospects, improving overall lead quality. On the other hand, by tracking call conversions based on only quality leads leaving out the fluff of wrong dials, and calls that mean nothing to your business, can help you feed the google algorithm with the right data and move to a value based bidding strategy.
Impact of Finding More Quality Leads to your business:
- Enhanced lead targeting
- Increased conversion rates
- Higher-quality customer base
💡 Call Tracking Tips by Marketing Experts
Start scoring/tagging calls with different values based on quality. Then send the call conversions with the corresponding value back to advertising platforms.
Then when you’ve collected enough “learning” conversions switch to a bidding strategy based on conversion value, like tROAS or max ROAS.
Assigning a monetary value to call conversions. Calculate the average number of calls that lead to successful sales, and identify the average value of each sale.
With this information, you can estimate the monetary worth of individual call conversions. By incorporating this value into your call conversion metrics, your PPC reports will accurately represent the average Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) in relation to both web and call conversions.
6. Mapping the Whole Lead Journey
Why it can be beneficial: Another benefit of Call tracking is that it provides a comprehensive view of the customer journey, from the initial contact (page view) to the final sale (actual call that drove the sale). This holistic perspective enables you to understand and optimize every touchpoint in the sales process, improving the overall customer experience.
Impact of Mapping the Whole Lead Journey to your business:
- Improved customer journey insights
- Enhanced touchpoint optimization
- Better sales process understanding
7. Enhance Local Presence
Why it can be beneficial: For businesses with multiple locations or those offering services beyond their local area, using local call tracking numbers can build trust and enhance local marketing. Customers are more likely to engage with a business that has a recognizable local number, improving your local presence and credibility.
Impact of Enhancing Local Presence to your business:
- Increased local customer trust
- Improved local marketing effectiveness
- Enhanced community presence
🔥 If you want to learn more about tracking number check out 👉 A brief guide to Call Tracking Phone Numbers: What are they, why do you need them and how to get them in 4 steps
8. Improve Customer & Caller Experience
Why it can be beneficial: The last thing a business needs is frustrated customers. Imagine this: A customer calls after seeing one of your Google Ads. They need to speak to someone with proper expertise. Instead, they are greeted by an impersonal automated message and a convoluted call flow. A series of menus and choices that only serve to bore them and make them hang up.
One of the most important call tracking benefits, are call sources analyzing. This will allow you to design smart call flows. The customer will speak to an expert and enjoy a more effective customer service experience. Conversion chances will rise and your business will also save time
Call tracking goes beyond call routing though. Features like whispers will provide your call agents with real-time support before they even greet the calling customer. They will receive relevant customer data like past purchases or service inquiries as a “whisper” during a call. his allows them to personalize the interaction by addressing the customer by name, referencing past experiences, or offering targeted recommendations. Whispers will drive your team to offer exceptional customer service that builds trust and loyalty.
Impact of Improving Customer & Caller Experience to your business:
- Higher customer satisfaction
- Increased customer loyalty
- Better overall service quality
9. Get Content Ideas
Why it can be beneficial: Call tracking can reveal common questions and concerns from your customers, providing valuable insights for content creation. By addressing these topics in your marketing materials, you can better meet customer needs and improve engagement.
Impact of Getting Content Ideas to your business:
- More relevant and BOFU content creation
- Increased customer engagement
- Enhanced marketing effectiveness
10. Adapt Better to Mobile-First Approach
Why it can be beneficial: With more customers using mobile devices to contact businesses, call tracking helps you optimize your mobile marketing strategies. Understanding mobile user behavior ensures your campaigns are effective and tailored to this growing audience.
Around 60% of web traffic occurs through mobile devices. Think about it for a moment. That means that the most likely way for a user to reach your website, is through a smartphone. And what will those users do when they want to contact you or buy from you? That’s right! They will hit that click to call button.
Customers with a strong intention to buy prefer to call because of:
- Convenience: Customers can find the information they need and make a purchase or booking with a single interaction.
- Ease of use: Completing a form on a smartphone can be slow and frustrating. Calling is faster and easier.
- Personalization: Busy customers don’t have time to search through pages of content to find the answers that are relevant to them. With a phone call, they get personalized answers which give them the confidence to make a purchase.
Web traffic through mobile will only keep growing. The natural next step after they find a business is to make a call. And you need to be tracking those calls.
Impact of Adapting Better to Mobile-First Approach to your business:
- Improved mobile marketing strategies
- Smarter pacing of click-to-call CTAs by knowing which button drove each call
- Enhanced user experience on mobile devices
- Increased engagement from mobile users
11. CRM Data Enrichment
Why it can be beneficial: Call tracking data can be integrated into your CRM system, enriching customer profiles with valuable information. This comprehensive data allows for more personalized interactions and better customer relationship management.
Impact of CRM Data Enrichment to your business:
- More detailed customer profiles
- Enhanced personalization
- Improved customer relationship management
💡 Call Tracking Tips by Marketing Experts
We faced a challenge organizing calls in our CRM, not knowing if they were from new or existing clients. To fix this, we started using call tracking option for both new and repeat callers.
By sending data to our CRM based on whether it was a new or repeat caller, we could see exactly from which channels our new leads were coming from each month. This not only made reporting easier but also improved how we get new clients.
Now, with this clarity, we make better decisions and allocate budget into the channels that bring in more new clients, making our process of lead generation to work even better.
12. Increase Website Engagement & Conversions
Why it can be beneficial: By understanding which web pages and online campaigns drive phone calls, you can optimize your website for better engagement and higher conversion rates. Call tracking provides the insights needed to refine your digital strategies effectively.
Impact of Increasing Website Engagement & Conversions to your business:
- Improved website performance
- Higher conversion rates
- Enhanced user experience
13. Learn More About Your Customers
Why it can be beneficial: Call tracking provides valuable data on customer preferences, behaviors, and pain points. This information helps you tailor your marketing and sales strategies to better meet customer needs and expectations. Moreover, the Economist has called data “the new oil”. Companies like Facebook and Google are willing to provide amazing services for free because it provides a way to extract this valuable asset. Data is critical because it gives such a powerful competitive edge to the businesses that possess it.
Call tracking isn’t just about identifying what marketing channels are delivering customers. Call tracking lets you learn exactly who those customers are and what motivates them to buy. These marketing insights can then be uploaded to your CRM, so that you are better able to serve and monetize that customer.
With a call tracking software, you can go as deep as you want. Analyze the actual transcripts from the phone call and gain high valuable qualitative insights to support your quantitative data. If you want to truly understand your customer, then you need to have a call tracking software in place.
The modern business environment is highly competitive. You can’t afford to squander your resources on marketing channels that aren’t producing the best possible return on investment. The question is not whether you should start using a call tracking software. Rather, the true question is what will the long-term consequences be, if you don’t start tracking calls today?
Impact of Learning More About Your Customers to your business:
- Deeper customer insights
- Better-targeted marketing
- Improved customer satisfaction
14. Rich Reporting & Analytics
Why it can be beneficial: Call tracking offers detailed reporting and analytics, giving you a clear picture of your marketing performance. These insights help you make data-driven decisions and continuously improve your strategies.
Impact of Rich Reporting & Analytics to your business:
- Enhanced decision-making
- Continuous strategy improvement
- Better understanding of marketing performance
15. Sales & Marketing Alignment
Why it can be beneficial: Call tracking helps bridge the gap between sales and marketing by providing a shared view of lead sources and customer interactions. This alignment ensures both teams are working towards common goals and can improve overall business outcomes.
Impact of Sales & Marketing Alignment to your business:
- Improved collaboration between teams
- Consistent lead management
- Enhanced business outcomes
… and of course calls are more likely to convert
Well, it’s true! According to a study by Google, 61% of mobile phone users will call when they are ready to buy. This is critical information. If you are not measuring your calls then all of your marketing metrics may be skewed. Calls aren’t just part of the picture – they are the center of it. Google’s data showed that calls were particularly important for high ticket items like finance or travel.
It’s rational that customers who intend to pay a significant amount of money for a product or service, will want to speak directly to someone first. Fail to provide this “high touch” interaction and you’ll miss the sale. If you aren’t tracking those calls, then you have no visibility over the most important aspect of your business.
What Call Tracking has to offer for Agencies?
Agencies especially have many reasons to use a call tracking software. Call tracking can be a game-changer for agencies by providing deep insights into what marketing efforts actually drive results for each client. You can analyze call data down to the keyword level, identify what generates valuable leads, and eliminate wasteful spending. It automates reporting by seamlessly integrating with your existing tools like ad platforms and CRMs, attaching call value for accurate ROI calculations. This empowers you to confidently showcase the success you deliver for your clients.
Nimbata can offer your agency even more call tracking benefits. You can automatically send call summaries to your client’s inbox. You will save time and show your true impact on a regular basis. You can also use white labeling to create a consistent brand image. You can customize the interface and your emails so that they are inline with your identity. And lastly, you can effortlessly and manage unlimited sub-accounts for clients and brands to work in a collaborative environment.
Click here for a 14-Day free trial and see for yourself what call tracking can do for your business.
Find the right call tracking software for your needs
In conclusion, selecting the right call tracking software is essential for optimizing your marketing efforts and improving customer interactions. The ideal call tracking solution will provide accurate lead attribution, detailed analytics, valuable insights into customer behavior, native CRM, Marketing & Reporting integrations, and of course a fair pricing and support with Call Tracking Experts.
It should seamlessly integrate with your existing tools and support your specific industry requirements. By investing in the right call tracking software, you can enhance your lead management, boost marketing ROI, and foster better alignment between your sales and marketing teams. Ultimately, the right call tracking software will empower you to make data-driven decisions, improve customer experiences, and drive business growth.
Don’t wait; start reaping the benefits today!
FAQ
ABOUT THE AUTHOR