A brief guide to Call Tracking Phone Numbers: What are they, why do you need them and how to get them in 4 steps

Call Tracking Phone Numbers are used by marketers to measure the performance of their efforts. Whether it’s tracking sources, campaigns, ad groups, keywords, landing pages, or business listings, these numbers let you see exactly what’s driving results. They work like package tracking numbers from a post office, but instead of following shipments, they track how your marketing contributes to revenue—helping you understand what’s working and what’s not.

Call tracking numbers are unique phone numbers assigned to specific marketing campaigns or channels, such as TV, radio, print, or online ads. These numbers forward calls to a business’s main line while capturing essential data—like caller details, call duration, and campaign source—using call tracking software. This data helps businesses measure campaign performance, optimize strategies, and improve customer engagement.

Extended Definition

Call tracking numbers, also known as call tracking phone numbers, are specialized numbers used by businesses to monitor and measure the effectiveness of their advertising and marketing campaigns. Each number is uniquely tied to a specific channel, such as TV, radio, print ads, or digital platforms, to help identify which efforts are driving the most engagement.

These numbers work seamlessly by forwarding calls to your regular business number or mobile number. When paired with call tracking software, they offer advanced features like call recording, agent whispers (brief notifications to agents before answering), and customizable call routing. For example, you can set up after-hours calls to go directly to voicemail, or use dynamic routing to connect a caller with the agent they previously spoke to, creating a more personalized experience.

Call tracking software collects valuable data during each call, such as:

• Caller details (phone number, location)
• Call metadata (time, duration, frequency)
• Campaign performance metrics (source page, ad type)

This information is analyzed to uncover which campaigns deliver the highest ROI and which channels drive the most leads. Additionally, by analyzing call recordings, transcriptions, and tags, businesses gain insights into customer behavior, refine their sales scripts, and identify common pain points. This not only boosts marketing efficiency but also enhances customer experience and engagement.

By leveraging call tracking numbers, businesses can make data-driven decisions to optimize their marketing efforts, improve team performance, and deliver a superior customer experience.

Yes, there are Local Numbers and Toll-free Numbers.

Local Call Tracking Numbers are the most suitable choice in case you want to attract local customers. These are phone numbers with a local area code that businesses can use to track calls from specific regions or cities. For example, a business might use a local phone number with a New York area code to track calls from customers in the New York area. Many people prefer to purchase products or services from their local market. So, selecting a tracking number with a familiar prefix will give your business a head start.

Toll-Free Call Tracking Numbers, on the other hand, are free for your customers. These numbers are phone numbers with a specific prefix, such as 800, 888, or 877, that allow customers to call the business for free. Toll-free numbers are often used for customer service and support, and businesses can use them to track calls and leads from specific marketing campaigns. They are preferred to demonstrate a national or a global perspective for your business, without charging your customers with the hefty price tag of long-distance fees.

The main difference between local and toll-free phone numbers is that a local phone number is associated with a specific geographic location or region, while a toll-free phone number can be used to receive calls from anywhere within the country without the caller incurring long-distance charges.

Another difference between local and toll-free phone numbers is that toll-free numbers are typically associated with a national image or regional presence, while local numbers are more commonly used by small and medium-sized businesses that operate within a specific geographic area.

Call Tracking Numbers are the heart of Call Tracking. A Call Tracking Software is designed to help Marketers to track and analyze better the impact of their marketing activities (offline or online) and connect the different touchpoints to investigate the full user journey.

• Marketing Attribution: Call Tracking can help bridge the marketing attribution gap. Knowing what generated each call and attributing each phone lead to specific channels/campaigns/adgroups/keywords, without asking a potential customer “How did you find out about my business”, will give you a boost to your multi-channel attribution.
• Optimize on quality leads, not clicks: Instead of counting bloated clicks on click-to-call buttons, with a call tracking software you can customize what a conversion means to your business by setting up rules and criteria. For example, you may want to sent to Google Ads only the calls that lasted more that 3 minutes or only the first time callers.
• Boost Local Presence: Show your customers where you’re based – whether it’s in your own local area or in another state across the country.
• Improve Landing Pages: You can deep dive into call data and see the callers’ journeys. Investigate which pages they visited before the call, which is the action or call page (the page that made them call you) and which were their actions after the call. You may find some patterns that will lead to page, message or cta copy improvements. You can, also, create A/B testings to see which cta copy originate more phone calls.
• Classify your Phone Leads: With Tags & Scoring you can score leads after each call and turn your focus to winning them as customers and handle your time efficiently.

But, even though Call Tracking isn’t a new Technology, it’s living its golden era. That’s because Marketers, now, are even more data-driven and have realised the impact of the missing data to their Marketing Strategy and decisions. For example,

1. Lead Management: Lead Management Features, make it easier to increase conversion data accuracy and simplify your tracking process. You can use automation rules for streamlined lead classification and integration triggers to supercharge your call data.
2. CRM Integrations: Phone Leads can have a huge impact on your CRM Attribution. You can create contacts when a new lead calls your business for the first time, or update existing contacts with phone lead data.
3. Slack: Slack is huge due to the new WFH culture, and now it’s so much more that a chatting app. Embrace Slack’s Feature like channels, and turn your slack workspace into a lead management machine by sending call notifications when a new phone call is placed. Plus, you can take action asap in case of a missed call, so that you eliminate the chances of loosing a new prospect.
4. Form Tracking: Most of the call tracking softwares, offer form tracking for better understanding of lead activity, and calculate accurately your lead conversion rates.

Actually is pretty easy to acquire tracking numbers, in fact it will only take you a few minutes, just follow the steps bellow.

After creating your Nimbata account, the process of acquiring your first tracking is very simple. Go to Tracking Numbers page and click on “Add new” button. Choose where you wish to place your tracking numbers, and click “Next”.

In the next step, you will decide how many tracking numbers are necessary to effectively monitor your phone calls. This is where the concept of the pool comes into play. The Call Tracking Pool is a collection of available tracking numbers ready to be assigned to new sessions when visitors land on your website. If you already know the quantity of tracking numbers you’ll need, simply enter the amount in the “Quantity” field. Otherwise, you will need to calculate your pool based on your requirements.

For example, if you want to track “all sources,” you’d need 82 tracking numbers. However, if you’re focusing on calls from Paid Search (Google and Bing Ads), you’d only need 40 tracking numbers.

Choose your tracking number type (national or toll-free) and the prefix by selecting the State and City for the US, or City for EU, UK, and AU. Then, pick the numbers you wish to use from the provided list. If you need more than 10 numbers, then they will be picked automatically for you. Once done, click on “Next”.

The destination number is your personal or business phone number where calls made to your newly acquired tracking numbers will be forwarded. Essentially, it’s the number that will ring whenever someone dials one of your tracking numbers.

A call flow sets up the connection between your tracking number and your destination number. Essentially, it’s the process you completed in the previous step by entering the destination number. However, with the call flow builder, you can customize this connection to fit your needs. For example, you can enable features like call recordings and transcriptions, use Keypad Entry (similar to an IVR system), choose different call routing options, add a voicemail, and much more, as shown in the example below.

In case you need it, here is the detailed guide:

Call Tracking can be a powerful weapon for your business or for your clients (if you have a marketing agency, remember you can always sell it as White Label). Having all your phone leads data, in one centralized place, ready to be analyzed and pushed to your integrated apps, it can help you save some valuable time on creating call conversion tracking workarounds, while bringing untapped insights about your phone leads and customers to the surface.

FAQ – Call Tracking Phone Numbers