As we wrote in a recent Marketing Pilgrim post, call tracking is one of three essential pieces to closed-loop marketing conversion tracking. In partnership with web analytics and a CRM system, call tracking can complete the lead-conversion puzzle by tracking offline conversions, and help marketers understand which campaigns are generating the greatest ROI.
For Google AdWords advertisers on the fence over whether or not to invest in a full call tracking solution, Google’s Call Metrics (a Google AdWords call tracking extension) offers a fairly easy, and free, way to assess your need.
Google Call Metrics
On March 22, Search Engine Land reported on a case study Google recently published touting the ability of Call Metrics to boost pay-per-click (PPC) conversions. According to the case study, a large financial-services company saw an increase of 29 percent in incoming calls and a 17-percent boost in conversions by integrating tracking phone numbers into its ads.
While this information is highly useful for campaign optimization, it is also indicative of a larger call tracking need.
Google Call Metrics only tracks calls from individuals that viewed an ad on search-results pages. It doesn’t track the number of calls the company received after a visitor clicked on the ad and arrived on the landing page, nor calls that resulted from Bing PPC traffic, or any other marketing campaign for that matter.
How to Get Started:
To get started evaluating your call tracking needs with Google Call Metrics, read the following Search Engine Land post that provides step-by-step instructions on how to set up Google Call Metrics, as well as other ad extensions. Google Call Metrics is free to try for the time being.
Please note: This feature may not be available on your account yet because it is in limited release, but you can petition Google to include the option on your account.
Once activated, look at the number of incoming calls, which may be as few as one or two a week depending on your ad spend, industry or product/service.
If your ads are generating calls, it’s probably safe to assume that your landing pages, are also driving phone conversions, and you may have a need for a call tracking solution.
What Next?
Once you’ve established that you have a need, here are five steps to help you start your search for a call tracking solution.
Remember, by capturing offline conversion data, you’re completing the lead-conversion picture. The more accurate this picture, the better armed you are to make effective campaign updates that can improve performance and boost ROI.
What are some other ways to determine whether a campaign could benefit from a call tracking?
Tags: Call Tracking, Google Call Metrics, mongoose metrics, phone call tracking
Kathleen,
I have been searching for an answer to a question I have concerning Google analytics and your article might be as close as I have come to finding an answer so I thought I would drop you a note and see if you can verify this for me. We develop mobile web sites and one of our clients wants to know how to track if people who visit the site are exiting via a click on phone number, this would be a good thing as they would be calling one of their franchises for more information or to make a reservation etc Do you know if this is possible with call metrics somehow. Thanks, Chris