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In digital marketing, tracking campaign success is easy. There is a wide range of analytics tools that will help you measure the performance of your SEO, PPC, email marketing, and social media marketing campaigns.

Still, you should not underestimate the power of traditional marketing. According to BrightLocal, 60% of customers say they would call a local business on the phone after finding them online. On the other hand, 16% would send an email, 15% would visit the business location, while only 3% would contact a brand via social networks.

Phone calls are more important than you think. They often generate more leads and convert faster than online marketing channels.

Unfortunately, many businesses still do not track their calls, meaning they cannot attribute leads and conversions to specific marketing campaigns.

That is exactly where phone call tracking steps in, helping you understand what online and offline marketing tactics encouraged a customer to pick up the phone.

Here are a few simple tips on how to improve your marketing efforts with call tracking.

Choose Call Tracking Tools that Meet your Needs

With the right call tracking tool, you can measure the effectiveness of your online and offline marketing campaigns and make data-driven decisions in the future.

For starters, switch from a landline to VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) services. Unlike a traditional landline, VoIP uses internet connections. Apart from being more affordable, it offers many additional features, including call tracking. Some of the best VoIP service providers let you record, track, analyze, and rate customers’ calls. With this kind of data, it will be easier for you to assess the effectiveness of your customer service and understand what media channels are driving customers’ calls. Additionally, you can also see specific data on each call, such as its start time, end time, call duration, caller’s location, etc.

Given that, it is not surprising that the VoIP market will continue to grow. According to the 2019 report by Global Market Insights, the global VoIP market share will reach $55 billion by 2025.

Alternatively, you could choose a call tracking software for your business, such as Phonewagon, CallRetail, or WhatConverts. Call tracking tools identify the source of each phone call, be it social networks, paid ads, or traditional marketing channels, letting you measure their effectiveness. They offer many advanced features, such as:

• Static call tracking
• Dynamic call tracking
• Campaign tracking
• Keyword tracking
• Call recordings

Track the Right Metrics

To track calls and audit the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns, you first need to choose the right KPIs to measure, such as:

• Analyze the overall call volume – tells you how many calls you generated over a reporting period. When compared with the leads generated and sales made, this KPI will show how effective your marketing efforts are.
• Measure what devices and channels customers’ calls are coming in from. Many call tracking tools let you see how many calls were made from organic, paid, referral, or social media traffic.
• Measure call attribution by keywords – apart from using keywords to improve rankings and traffic, you can use them to boost phone calls, as well. When knowing what phrases are driving your calls and conversions, you will know how to adapt your PPC campaigns according to them.
• The total duration of calls – longer calls often indicate that users are engaged. A customer would not waste their time chatting with you if they are not interested in buying your products. By tracking the total length of your calls, you will know what campaigns, channels, keywords, and ads are generating the most qualified leads.
• Track missed calls. If a customer is held on hold or their call is transferred to voicemail, chances are they will end the phone call and never call you again. For your business, this means a lost lead. To avoid that, you should capture every missed call. That is exactly where Google Ads steps in. It helps you see call details, such as its start time, end time, status, caller’s area code, call type, etc.

Measure your ROI

Your goal is to measure the revenue generated by phone calls. There are a few tactics you could use. For starters, you could track calls from call-only ads or calls made from your website’s CTA buttons or links. Additionally, you could set a minimum call length for each call – each call that lasts longer than that will be considered a conversion.

By applying these tactics, you will understand what types of calls convert, what revenue they generate, and whether your call tracking practices are paying off.

Conclusions

If you think that phone calls are dead, you are wrong. They still help you drive leads to your business. That is why you should start tracking your calls to understand what online and offline marketing tactics resonate with your customers and convert faster. Only this way will you be able to adapt your marketing campaigns to your target audience’s needs and maximize sales.