What IsCall Tracking?

Call tracking is a technique that businesses use to obtain data from phone calls with customers. It allows marketers to determine which tactic or campaign generated the call and what the outcome of the interaction was.

A call tracking software can indicate the ad, keyword, or landing page that motivated the customer to make a phone call. Companies would use this information to optimize their marketing campaigns, websites, social media, and other channels. Call tracking is also essential for proving a marketing effort’s return on investment.

How Does Call Tracking Software Work? 

Call tracking software allows companies to link phone communications to a customer’s digital activity by collecting data via trackable phone numbers. The assigned number serves as a referral source, which marketers use to monitor and analyze leads. Whenever a customer calls a trackable number, the call is routed to an agent through the platform, which gathers the digital data and ties the call to the customer’s digital journey.

How Can Call Tracking Software Help a Business?

Phone calls from customers are among the most valuable conversions a marketer can generate. Tracking those calls enables businesses to assess the effectiveness, profitability, and return on investment of each ad campaign. It does so by indicating the specific ads, keywords, or web pages that are most effective when it comes to generating phone calls from prospective customers. 

Call tracking software also reveals the number of phone calls that result in valuable leads and conversions. This provides a business with complete attribution for campaigns. In fact, it helps in reoptimizing them to maximize customer engagement, improve conversion rates, and increase revenue. 

Call Tracking in Marketing

Companies make use of call tracking to optimize the performance of digital marketing on top of tailoring the caller experience and improving the customer journey. This leads to a higher return on ad spend (ROAS) as well as a lower cost-per-acquisition (CPA) and cost-per-click (CPC) on paid search. Other benefits of call tracking in marketing include: 

  • Minimizing wasted marketing budget 

  • Getting credit for calls that a marketing effort generates

  • Retargeting callers based on previous phone conversations

  • Improving caller profiles using conversation data

  • Monitoring the full return on investment from particular campaigns

  • Driving conversions by refining the performance of call agents

Who Uses Call Tracking?

Call tracking is a common practice among industries that rely on inbound phone calls to gain customers and drive revenue. It helps marketers pinpoint the most valuable campaigns and optimizes their efforts accordingly. Industries that can benefit from call tracking include the following.

Automotive

The automotive industry includes everything from car dealerships to handling engine problems, oil changes, and more. In any case, phone calls make up a huge part of the interactions between automotive businesses and consumers. Whether they’re looking to buy a new car or fix an issue with theirs, customers would search for a business online and make a call. 

Having call tracking software in place allows car dealerships and repair shops to make the most of their landing pages, digital ads, and other forms of marketing. 

Home Services

Any business that falls under this category deals with large volumes of phone calls. A homeowner needing to repair a sink, for example, would search for plumbing services on Google and compare a few options before choosing one and making a phone call. This common conversion path involves a good deal of planning. And since a phone conversation is the most efficient way to do so, call tracking becomes a necessity. 

Real Estate

Whether a customer is looking to buy a home or rent an apartment, they will often start by connecting with the real estate agent via phone call. While filling out forms can be an effective way to generate leads, direct calls are always more profitable. Tracking those conversations can help marketers in the real estate industry obtain valuable insight that they can use to optimize campaigns. 

Travel and Hospitality

When it comes to hospitality industry marketing, phone calls are an integral part of the booking process. But those marketing efforts go to waste without call tracking. In most cases, guests search for locations and browse the hotel’s landing pages before making a phone call. Call tracking enables marketing teams to analyze the conversations as well as the visitor’s digital activity. The same applies to the travel industry, where booking yoga retreats, exotic tours, and other vacation packages largely relies on phone calls.

Choosing the Right Call Tracking Solution

The right call tracking solution is one that offers the most useful features. It’s important to find a software that adds the most value to the business. Choosing a call tracking software involves taking several essential details into consideration:

  • Ability to record and transcribe phone calls accurately 

  • Availability of AI technology that gathers conversational analytics from transcriptions

  • Access to click path attribution for websites

  • Option to analyze phone conversations based on factors that matter to the marketing efforts 

  • Size of the phone number pool required to obtain the necessary call data

  • Ability to measure the number of calls that result in sales or appointments

  • Compatibility with digital ad platforms as well as existing sales and marketing tools