Mongoose MetricsConversion & Call Tracking Blog

Landing page testing and optimization is an effective tool to help increase the effectiveness of campaigns. But, what happens when your campaign’s landing page needs to convert both web forms and  phone calls?

In this post and in the upcoming post we will be exploring how to track and report both form submissions and phone call conversions – and to report both sets of data in a unified fashion using Google Analytics.

You will learn:

• How to report both landing page form submissions and offline phone calls driven from the landing page visits in Google Analytics.
• How to integrate session level (keyword and IP address) phone call tracking into your landing page optimization campaign.
• In this post we will be covering a simple integration where the landing page is the first click destination from an ad source, such as paid search.
• In the upcoming post we will be covering an advanced integration where the landing page conversion is later in the click funnel.  This advanced integration is perfect for measuring white paper conversions and any other campaign where the visitor may browse around before converting on the landing page.

With your newly learned tactics you will be:

• Empowered to place phone call tracking numbers on your landing pages.
• Capable of conducting A/B split testing where you measure both web form submissions and phone call conversions.
• Capture all paid search keywords, including long-tail terms that drive phone conversions and use this data to further optimize your advertising efforts.
• Measure and report your hard work in the same campaign within Google Analytics or your web analytics package of choice.
• Capable of measuring and getting credit for phone calls driven from website visitors who viewed your landing page – yeah!

We’ll be demonstrating these tactics using Unbounce. Unbounce, a leader in landing page development, empowers marketers to create, publish, test and optimize landing pages. Unbounce is a self-serve hosted service that provides marketers with landing pages that can be built from templates and used for lead generation forms, click through, product launch and social media. These templates allow a marketer to take control and publish paid search campaigns, banner ads and email landing pages, without the need to consult an IT resource or developer.

This integration will be conducted using Mongoose Metrics’ session level phone call tracking product, AccuTrack Session.

With this integration we will show you how to push both the Unbounce form conversion data and Mongoose Metrics phone call conversion data into Google Analytics.  This will allow you to measure and report both form submissions and calls in a single environment and to see in-depth all of the dimensions, which drove the conversion.

Simple Integration: Form and phone conversion tracking when landing page is first click from advertising source, such as paid search.

This integration tactic is ideal when you are driving traffic, such as paid search, to a landing page and you expect the site visitors to fully convert on the landing page. For this integration Mongoose Metrics’s AccuTrack Session product is installed into the Unbounce platform using Unbounce’s handy JavaScript insertion feature.

Integration Steps – High Level Overview

1. Install Mongoose Metrics AccuTrack Session code into Unbounce system using Unbounce’s JavaScript insertion feature.
2. In Unbounce, create hidden forms to track form submissions in Google Analytics.
3. Include a phone number on the Unbounce landing page.
4. Drive traffic to the landing page from an advertising source, such as paid search.
5. That’s it!

With the above method you will be able to track both form submission and phone calls, measure what keywords drove both, and push everything into Google Analytics to produce a combined single report.  So we made this look very easy, and now for the details:

Integration Steps – The Details

With our integration steps overview above, the following steps below provide a deeper look into the exact steps needed to complete the integration.

Step 1 – Install Mongoose Metrics JavaScript Code.

In Unbounce, there is a powerful feature that allows you to include JavaScript code. Using this feature, you can add the JavaScript code that is necessary to link the landing page to the Mongoose Metrics service.  To add the JavaScript code, in Unbounce, click the ‘edit’ button next to the landing page variant you wish to add JavaScript code to. Next, in Unbounce, click on the JavaScript icon in the menu bar and add the Mongoose Metrics JavaScript code using the tool.

Step  2 – Create Hidden Form Fields To Integrate With Google Analytics.

Next, you’ll want to push your Unbounce form submissions into Google Analytics. There are many ways to represent this information in Google Analytics, for this example the conversion data will be stored as a campaign. To do this, you need to make use of Unbounce’s hidden form fields in order to make use of Google Analytics campaign tracking features. More about Google Analytics campaign tracking can be seen here using their URL Builder Tool.

To add the hidden fields, simply click on any form field on the landing page variant page and in the right side-bar menu click on the “edit form fields” button.  Use the Unbounce tool to create three hidden fields.  The three hidden fields you’ll need to create are for utm_campaign, utm_source and utm_medium.  Populate the default hidden form values with information needed to track your campaign.

For our example we used:

utm_campaign  – White Paper campaign
utm_source – www.mongoosemetrics.com
utm_medium – Unbounce web form

Tip – You will want utm_campaign and  utm_source to be identical in both the Unbounce hidden form and in the Mongoose Metrics’ postback URL. If it is not, you will not store both form conversions and phone calls in the same location in Google Analytics.

Unbounce - Hidden Form Fields

Step 3 – Include a phone number on your landing page.

This is the easiest step of all!  Because Mongoose Metrics’ javascript is installed, it will take care of the rest by dynamically replacing the phone number on the Unbounce landing page with a tracking number served by Mongoose Metrics. Along with serving the number, the IP address, keyword, and other visitor metrics are also logged. When a call is made from the tracking number, the call is correlated back to the visitor session and Mongoose Metrics will execute a post-back to your Google Analytics account with the data.

Step 4 – In Mongoose Metrics, configure the postback URL

To complete this step, login to your Mongoose Metrics account and on the campaign configuration page, edit the postback URL. Use the postback URL builder to build a URL and be sure to include utm_source, utm_campaign, and utm_medium.

In our example, we used the following settings:

utm_campaign – White Paper Campaign
utm_source – www.mongoosemetrics.com
utm_medium – phone

Setup the post back in Mongoose Metrics to push the call data into Google Analytics or elsewhere.

Be sure to select what call data to post back, including keyword, in order to track what landing page phone calls where driven from keywords.

That’s it! If you are familiar with Unbounce and setting up Mongoose Metrics Accutrack Session campaigns, the above integration steps will be quite simple.  You can get fancier too, by using utm_medium to store ad variant and nothing is stopping you from storing this data in Google Analytics as a goal as well!

With the above integration complete, you can now track both Unbounce form submissions and Mongoose Metrics phone calls made from visitors who called from the Unbounce landing page.  This data will all be reported into Google Analytics as a campaign for easy viewing and reporting. Best of all, by filtering the secondary dimensions in Google Analytics to Keywords, you will see the form submissions and keywords which drove traffic.

From a landing page testing and optimization perspective, these steps will allow you to measure your PPC initiatives and content changes in order to optimize the conversion path. In today’s world of justifying advertising dollars, it is important to accurately and efficiently track the performance of form submission and phone calls!

In our upcoming, Part 2, blog piece we will be reviewing a more advanced integration in which the landing page conversion is later in the click funnel and the JavaScript is installed directly into the website, rather than through the landing page. Look for our upcoming post in the next week!