October, 2010


28
Oct 10

Top Ten Things You Can do with Call Tracking

Online advertisers are increasingly looking for advantages to get ahead of the crowd. What’s the next big thing? Who can help me find the secret sauce to more sales, more conversions, more success?

If you haven’t investigated call tracking, you are certainly missing an ingredient that can make your business go from good to great. Ask our satisfied customers. They often tell us that after implementing call tracking they see a 20 to 40 percent improvement in ROI for marketing spending.

OK, so here’s the deal. This post tells you everything you need to know to understand the Top Ten Things You Can do with Call Tracking.

  1. See phone calls next to clicks in Google Adwords with Google Call Tracking. This clever tool allows millions of Google Adwords users to quickly and easily aggregate offline conversion information (phone calls) with online conversion data (clicks) to illuminate which keywords are driving phone calls. For the first time ever, marketers can view a complete picture of their online spending — and conversions — with an integrated platform showing phone call data alongside Adword data in the Google Adwords Placement Performance Report dashboard.
  2. Simplify Your Life by Tracking Phone Calls with Google Analytics. For more advanced web marketers, it’s just as simple to track phone calls next to clicks within the Google Analytics platform. Google Analytics is a free web visitor tracking program offered by Google. It provides data related to how people interact (and convert) on your web site. Mongoose Metrics provides an integration which allows you to visualize your web form conversions alongside your phone conversions directly within the Google Analytics interface.
  3. Provision Local and Toll-Free Trackable Phone Numbers. Whether your business needs toll-free numbers to convey a national presence or local phone numbers to serve hyper-local communities, a good call tracking solution will provide both options. International businesses which want to connect to local communities in Los Angeles, Montreal or London can do so with either local or toll-free numbers displaying on their web sites depending on specific marketing objectives. While toll-free numbers help your business appeal to a wider audience, local phone numbers are attractive to visitors who feel only comfortable doing business with people in their own backyards. Call tracking solutions which use local phone numbers are a natural fit for any business which receives geographically-oriented calls such as storage companies, auto dealerships, pizza parlors, hair salons and service professionals (doctors and lawyers).
  4. Identify Which Keywords are Driving Phone Calls with Keyword Call Tracking. Whether you’re spending six figures or $600 each month on pay per click (PPC) advertising it’s imperative to know which keywords are performing and which ones should be discontinued. Call tracking provides the intelligence to drill even deeper by illuminating which keywords are making the phone ring. When web visitors visit your site and call your designated phone number, the call tracking software places a cookie on the visitor’s browser which tracks the entire click path from browsing through to completed sale. Action items from understanding this data would be to modify your PPC spending campaign as well as optimize your existing site to target terms which convert well via web forms and phone.
  5. Become a Call Tracking Reseller with a White Label Call Tracking Product. A white label product allows call tracking agencies and resellers to take full ownership of Mongoose Metrics’ robust call tracking services, expert technical support and full suite of keyword call tracking intelligence. Features and benefits include: Choice of sub-domain which is fully customizable and branded; branded log-in page with logo; No visible reference to Mongoose Metrics; Full access for resellers and/or their clients to Mongoose Metrics’ technical support, and a time investment of less than five minutes for implementation.
  6. Quantify Offline Conversions Resulting from Online Advertising. In addition to seeing phone calls next to clicks in numerous web analytics dashboards, call tracking features such as the interactive voice response (IVR) and ROI feedback tools let call tracking clients enter data related to the phone call for use in later correlation. For example, your customer service representatives can seemlessly enter in call-result data via a Mongoose Metrics IVR system at the end of their call.
  7. Track Phone Calls in Canada and the United Kingdom. Until now it’s been difficult for Canadian and UK businesses to use toll-free and local phone numbers to follow visitors from web-to-phone to understand how their websites drive phone calls and ultimately, sales. Technology now makes it possible for multi-national businesses which need a presence on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean and north of the border to seamlessly integrate their online marketing strategies with one call tracking solution. Mongoose partners with only toll-quality providers such as Virgin, O2 and British Telecom.
  8. Integrate Phone Call Analytics into your CRM. Take call tracking to the next level by integrating phone call data into customer relationship management (CRM) systems to provide even more granular data for sales professionals. Mongoose Metrics data easily integrates with Sugar, SalesForce and Microsoft CRM. The goal of this integration is to provide your sales and marketing team with a path analysis so they can understand why someone is calling and provide tailored information to potential customers.
  9. PPC Call Tracking Integration with WebtrendsTM, OmnitureTM, Acquisio and Unilytics. Many larger marketers use a PPC Bid Management system like Acquisio or Marin Software to simplify the task of managing multiple PPC campaigns across numerous advertising networks. These bid management softwares allow marketers the ability to visualize and automate their PPC bidding. Mongoose Metrics integrates into bid management software like KENSHOO, Marin and Acquisio so that our customers can see their online conversion metrics alongside their offline conversion metrics.
  10. Quantify Click to Call Conversions. For applications where it is easier to click to place a phone call, Mongoose Metrics provides a seemless drop-in interface to allow your client the ability to contact a representative of your company immediately. The Mongoose Click-to-Call interface is layered with many of the other Mongoose features enabling you the ability to visualize your complete offline conversion funnel within your existing business process.

26
Oct 10

One Reason We’re Going to Ad:Tech New York.


With only a few days before the Ad:Tech Marketing Conference in Manhattan we’re excited for the gathering and want to invite you to share in the learning from some of the country’s top thinkers.

The one reason you should join the conversation: The future of digital marketing is now.

Connect with us in three ways:

1) Stop by our booth in the exposition hall and share your questions about phone call tracking and conversion analytics. Our team will be happy to address them.   We’re experts when it comes to telling you which marketing sources make the phone ring.

2) Follow us on Twitter.  We’ll be Tweeting the best intel and most interesting content from some of the smartest folks in the industry. Check out our Twitter feed @mongoosemetrics.

3) Join the Ad:Tech LinkedIn group and contribute to the conversation, ask questions and engage with participants.

By the way, we’ve noticed three hashtags in use for the conference: #Adtech #Ad:tech and @AdtechNY.  Which one are you using?


				

21
Oct 10

Thanks, Avinash Kaushik, for the Call Tracking Recommendation

Avinash Kaushik, author of Web Analytics 2.0 (Sybex, 2009) and prolific blogger at Occam’s Razor by Avinash Kaushik, on Oct. 19 wrote a long and comprehensive entry titled,  “The Best Web Analytics 2.0 Tools: Quantitative, Qualitative, Life Saving!

The post covers an extensive list of tools for optimizing web analytics.  We’re delighted that he honored Mongoose Metrics by recommending our call tracking and conversion analytics technology as an important tool for understanding a complete picture of how marketing drives conversions.

Here’s a screenshot of the section about call tracking:

Avinash Kaushik Recommends Mongoose Metrics Call Tracking

Thanks, Avinash!


19
Oct 10

Conference Season Brings Out the Frat Boys, Brainiacs and Unabashed Self-Promoters

It’s conference season in America!  I’m still amazed by how many folks don the “frat boy” attitude for these brainy junkets. Snarkyness aside,  we’re getting ready for Ad:Tech New York and PubCon in Vegas, baby!  Here’s what the influencers are saying about the 2010 conference parade so far as well as a few links to recent social media marketing stories.

Good advice from Jeremiah Owyang for Conference Bloggers? posted 10/19/10@Jowyang’s comments on conferences: Blogging v. Tweeting

Conference organizers take note: and make your conference go from good to great – The Seven “Shoulds of Conference Organization” by Valeria Moltoni aka Conversation Agent.

Funny, sad and trueThe Social Moron’s Guide to Conferences by Ian Lurie at www.conversationmarketing.com.

And, just for fun…

Highbrow, Historical and Highly Subjective – Twitter co-founder Biz Stone responds in The Atlantic to Malcom Gladwell’s think-piece about the ties that bind in social media which ran earlier this month in The New Yorker.  Interesting viewpoints, good history lessons and overall worth the 20 min. investment you might make to digest both long-form pieces.

Here comes the promo…Five Things You Can Do with Call Tracking to Improve Your Conversion Rate – Our friends at IonInteractive.com generously gave us the space for this guest blog post about how call tracking reveals which keywords make the phone ring plus a lot of other stuff.


13
Oct 10

The Daily 5-Spot: Must-Read Online Marketing Stories for Oct. 13

If you’re into online marketing, conversion analytics, social media and branding, you’ll find these posts useful for keeping your skills and tools relevant in the ever-changing world of Internet marketing.

The Executive’s Guide to Google Analytics by Justin Cutroni.

Top 5 Ways to Market Your Business with LinkedIn by Lewis Howes.

This is the Plan I’d Use if I Started Today by Chris Brogan.

Ready for PPC Remarketing? 4 Questions to Help You Get Started by John Perich via www.searchengineland.com.

The Social Moron’s Guide to Conferences by Ian Lurie.

If you like these stories, follow us on Twitter for a comprehensive stream of the top intel about web analytics, call tracking, PPC, SEO, Social media, local search and mobile search.


13
Oct 10

Local Search Conversions Just Got Easier with Call Tracking for Multiple Markets

For businesses with multiple locations, the question has always been: “How can I get session data on a local level so I can understand which marketing efforts are making the phones ring?”

With the introduction of Mongoose Metrics’ Multi-Market Session Data feature, organizations such as auto dealers, franchises, rental facilities and national retails chains from all business sectors can begin to understand — at a granular level — which of their local marketing initiatives are working and which ones should be discontinued.

In the past, national advertisers would be forced into overspending on call tracking phone numbers for each location.  Today’s solution from Mongoose changes all that.  Now, businesses can rely on a pool of dynamic call tracking numbers which capture a treasure trove of information about where website visitors are coming from.  The feature reveals not only which PPC keywords drive phone calls but also the last URL visited, call recording, geo-location, caller ID, ad group, campaign and log time as well as numerous customizable features.

“Marketers are growing more accustomed to using quick feedback loops — which call tracking provides — for optimizing marketing dollars and making better spending decisions,” says Bradley Reynolds, chief executive officers for Mongoose Metrics.