In my last post I explained some of the main points of the Mongoose Metrics AccuTrack Session model. The great thing about the AccuTrack Session model is that search engine marketing managers no longer have to worry about being charged per number or per minute. Instead, they are only charged per visitor session. This saves marketing managers time and gives them some budget flexibility as charges are directly associated to the campaign spending.

However, SEO managers are unable to control organic traffic unlike paid search. This leaves them worried about extra costs associated with unecessary keywords they do not want tracked. Mongoose Metrics offers a solution that lets managers create exclude and include keyword lists.

Exclude Keyword List:

For example, lets say you did a case study on a particular client that makes blue widgets. Because the term “blue widgets” is posted on your site you may receive some organic traffic from that keyword. These hits do not originate from qualified searches and do not typically convert into phone conversions. This is where the AccuTrack Session Filtering feature can help.

The filtering feature allows SEOs to control which keywords are tracked by creating a negative keyword list. Setup is similar to the negative keyword list commnd on Google Adwords. The exclude keyword list helps users looking to save money on unqualified keywords.

Include Keyword List:

The include list is great for search engine marketers who want to track only a portion of their keywords. This is ideal for search marketers that do not want to incur a cost for their low volume long tail keywords. Instead of picking the keywords that should not be tracked, search engine managers can pick exactly which keywords are tracked. This give clients additional flexibility in the costs associated with AccuTrack Session.

Many clients use the exclude and include filters to track portions of their keywords on a monthly rotation. This gives them insight into what keywords are converting without the need for additional marketing dollars.

The pricing model of our AccuTrack Session product differs from the pricing used for our other products. Our team fields many calls looking for an explanation on how the Session pricing model works. In this post I will answer some of the more frequent questions surrounding the Session pricing model. Afterward, you should have a better idea of the benefits of AccuTrack Session pricing model.

1) How does the AccuTrack Session pricing model work?

The Session pricing model works by only charging the customer when a tracking number appears to a unique visitor to their site. This does not include:

• Visits that you are not tracking
• Direct Visitors
• Referral Visitors
• Visitors that see the number multiple times on different pages (One visitor equals only one SPC charge)

Think of the SPC charge simply as as extra fee associated with your Adwords bid. Everytime someone clicks on an Adwords ad you are charged an extra amount. 

2)  Are there ways of controlling the costs.

Many clients are concerned about the costs associated with the SPC pricing model. Customers have expressed worries that a large surge of visitors can inflate costs. They also do not want to pay for organic keywords that fail to convert into business. AccuTrack Session answers both concerns with the keyword threshold limit and filtering features.

Keyword threshold limit, addressed in an earlier post (How Keyword Publishing Threshold Controls Phone Call Tracking Costs), caps the amount a keyword will be charged per month. This means that AccuTrack Session will track high volume keywords over the course of the entire month, but will only charge a certain amount. At the same time, you can control which keywords are tracked with our filtering feature. Much like a negative keyword match in Google Analytics, you can set keywords to be disregarded. This allows you to focus in on the keywords that bring in business.

3)Why not just use a normal pricing model?

The SPC pricing model was designed with simplicity in mind. Instead of charging per minute or per phone number, we simply charge for the amount of clicks (paid and/or organic) to your website. In doing so you can easily judge the amount that you will spend each month for keyword level phone call tracking. All you need to do is look at the monthly amount of clicks you receive from your organic and/or PPC campaigns. This may seem complicated, but it proves easier than guessing the amount of phone numbers necessary for keyword level tracking. This also saves you from estimating your monthly minute usage.

The SPC pricing model may seem complicated on the surface, but clients appreciate the flexibility and ease it offers.

Please feel free to contact us with any additional questions.

Today I want to touch on the URL postback feature and the benefits it offers to our customers.

The URL postback feature is a standard feature in both AccuTrack 1:1 and AccuTrack Session products. Our full integration with existing web analyticss means that there is no additional cost associated with exporting this to your analytics. If you are looking at how to correctly setup this feature, please visit the integration guide - Phone Call Tracking with Google Analytics.

This guide will show you how to correctly set up your Mongoose Metrics account to send tracking data to Google Analytics.

However, in this post I do not want to get too technical and would rather focus on how the URL postback feature works.

How it works:

Whenever a phone call is made on one of your tracking numbers, information about that call is stored on our system. If you are using the URL postback feature, information is passed to Google Anayltics whenever our server visits a designated webpage. This visit is then represented as a phone call in your reports and carries with it details about the call. This information could be length of phone call, phone number, caller location, keyword, etc.

Example:

A visitor types into a search engine “Red Cars” and clicks on your Google Adwords PPC ad. While on your website they decide to give your company a call for more information. After the phone call is made, our system will tie back the visitor session to the original call. Then our server makes a visit to a designated webpage of your choice with the information about the phone call tagged in the URL string. When you view your Google Analytics report you will see this call under the campaign section. From there you can to drill down and see that the caller typed in “Red Cars” to find your website.

How it can help you:

URL postback saves by posting phone call tracking reports  alongside the rest of your online data. This allows you quickly compare the phone call tracking to web data without the need to access two different systems.

SEO and SEM firms have found the URL postback feature helpful because it frees them from having to extract reports from our interface. Instead, clients can easily see their call data in Google Anayltics.

The URL postback feature is a great way to save your company’s valuable time. If you have any more questions, please feel free to give us a call.