Posts Tagged: web analytics

Understanding Google’s New Search Default Restrictions

Google has found a way to start tightening the rope around search, and more specifically, SEO. According to Brad Reynolds, CEO at Mongoose, “Google is changing the face of web analytics by encrypting search results.” As a result of this change, anyone who logs into their Google account (i.e. Google+, Gmail) and then conducts a search via Google will no longer have referrer data sent along with it. That referrer data reveals what search terms were used in order to find a particular business or website. Paid ads, however, will not be affected by this change.

Who does this impact?

In a blog post, Google says less than 10% of searches will be affected by this change. Additionally, in a Search Engine Land Article, Matt Cutts a Google Software Engineer estimates the affected traffic to be 1-2% of search volume. Aggregate query data will continue to be available and include visits from users who are not signed into a Google account. This change only concerns organic search results while the user is logged into a Google account. It does not impact direct traffic, PPC traffic or affiliated traffic.

How does this affect the user experience?

In the Search Engine Land article: Google to Begin Encrypting Searches & Outbound Clicks By Default with SSL Search, Danny Sullivan does a great job of describing the setbacks from this change. This encryption prevents sophisticated keyword-based targeting from being used. It is almost as if we’re taking a step backwards in the progression of custom and personalized information. Instead of creating a better user experience, this is essentially making the consumer work harder. Take for example someone searching for a specific product, but since referrer data isn’t passed along to the company, the user lands on a basic web page. Now the user has to navigate through the website in order to find their particular product – essentially making the entire process more time consuming for the user. As a marketer, having the capability to track and analyze specific keyword information will become harder to obtain.

Why the change?

There is much speculation and controversy around why this change has been made. The majority of comments we have seen believe it is a way for Google to make more money and gain competitive advantage. Google mentions there is a growing importance of protecting the privacy of personalized search results. In an effort to protect users and their privacy, Google feels this is reason enough.

There are two additional facts we find to be confusing. First, Google will continue to offer this data to their paid advertisers, which seems inconsistent with the goal of protecting user privacy. Second, Google will continue to gather this organic search result information without passing it on, thus giving them exclusive intelligence related to search results. Some say this will hurt small businesses that cannot afford to pay for online marketing services, while others mention that this is a step in the right direction towards protecting the privacy of the consumer. The debate will be ongoing as more people become aware of this change in the marketing and SEO world.

With change, there is naturally going to be resistance. Like many changes, there will be pros and cons. At the moment, Mongoose is more interested in the long-term effects. Specifically, we’re curious to know how this will impact the way we search and if this will become a standard across all search engines. Will referrer data one day disappear for good – paid or not? Again, going back to Search Engine Land’s article, Sullivan claims that the future is clear:

“Referrer data is going away from search engines, and likely from other web sites, too. It’s somewhat amazing that we’ve had it last this long, and it will be painful to see that specific, valuable data disappear.”

Let’s say he’s right and this data disappears from search engines, what does this mean for social? Most users are searching via social already; perhaps this is an attempt by Google to gain traction in the social space as well. Although Google+ is not the most popular network in the social world, this might be the first step towards making that a reality. For now, Facebook and Twitter continue to own the social search arena. Users trust their friends’ feedback, comments and likes, which is something you don’t have in search engines. However, with Google, you do have the +1 option – but you need to be on Google+ for that function.

Your thoughts?

What do you think about what Google is doing? Are you for or against this change? Please leave any comments and suggestions below.

Analytics / Call Tracking / CRM / Integration / Mobile Marketing / Offline Advertising / PPC / Search Marketing / SEO / Social Media — No Comments
24
Oct 11

Smart Marketing Insights From eMetrics NYC

Last week Mongoose Metrics visited New York City to attend the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit. The show’s focus was to help marketers and web analytics professionals turn data into insight. The keynote speakers included people from Expedia, IBM, eBay, Nissan, eMarketer and more. Surely these folks know the importance of obtaining data to develop critical insights that help today’s businesses succeed. As a marketing director, those insights are what I’m after too.

So what did I learn at the eMetrics show? Below are just a handful of insights that I feel are worth sharing.

Research shows that transparency equals trust. We all know that today’s consumers trust each other more than marketers.
Of course we all want good, reliable customer and analytical data to make good business decisions. But decisions must be made nonetheless. Go to war with the data you have, not the data you wish you had.
When trying to see a holistic view of your online social data, combine mentions from all networks at least to record the data – even if you’re not entirely accurate on the sentiment.
Be aware of the audience you’re in. Marketing speak isn’t going to cut it. As marketers we have to listen. Over time that listening leads to learning. Monitor social & understand what your customers say. Use their language in your ads, keywords, etc.
Mobile isn’t the future. It’s now. Don’t wait to embrace mobile. Companies like eBay that rely largely on online commerce recognize this and are quickly developing solutions to serve today’s tech-savvy mobile consumer.

Feel free to share any additional insights from the show or else comment on the ideas I’ve mentioned.

Analytics / Call Tracking / CRM / Mobile Marketing / Offline Advertising / PPC / Search Marketing — No Comments
29
Sep 11

The Forgotten PPC Metric: Phone Call Conversions

Pay per click (PPC) advertising is used to drive traffic to your brand’s website, and is typically measured using online analytics. However, the most successful PPC campaigns are those that can capture and associate any form of lead conversion with a specific campaign, ad, keyword and landing page.

The missing, and often forgotten, piece to this lead conversion picture is the phone call. To effectively capture these offline conversions and tie them to your PPC campaigns, you need to integrate a PPC call tracking solution.

PPC 360° — Tracking a Complete View

When you combine phone calls with online form completions, you can gather valuable insight into campaign performance that will help you evaluate your PPC campaign and maximize returns. Specifically, you can use this information to evolve:

Keyword Selection: With call tracking and web analytics, you can identify the keywords that are driving lead conversions. Use this information to understand what terms drive the highest quality traffic, and then build out your campaigns using these terms, and direct synonyms, to increase conversions. At the same time, cut back on, or eliminate, the keywords that don’t result in conversions.
Bid Management: With the top lead-producing keywords identified, you can better manage how much you are willing to bid on each for top placement. If you know a keyword drives conversions, you can use ROI to justify spending more money per click. At the same time, you can reduce spend on keywords that are not driving adequate lead volume.
PPC Advertising Budget: With call tracking and web analytics showing you all lead conversions, you can make informed decisions on whether you are receiving an acceptable ROI on your PPC investment, and compare its return to other marketing and advertising initiatives. Depending on PPC rate of return, you may consider allocating more budget toward your campaign, or conversely, shift budgets away from PPC advertising to other, more effective marketing campaigns.
Landing Page Design and CTAs: The most successful PPC campaigns have a clear call to action, for example make a purchase, fill out a lead form, download content or call for additional information. Evaluate landing page design and CTA performance based on both online and offline conversion data. What may look like the best CTA in online analytics may not prove the best when you account for phone calls. Understand how your audiences prefer to communicate and what resonates with them, and then prompt them to take action based on their preferences as to improve conversion rates.

How to Integrate Call Tracking into Your PPC Campaign

The reason for integrating call tracking into PPC advertising is clear: it provides a full picture of campaign performance, helping you make informed investments.

Here are four quick steps to get started with call tracking for PPC.

First, work with a call tracking provider for initial setup.
Add call tracking numbers throughout your website, either by manually placing them on individual landing pages or integrating a call tracking Javascript snippet into your website’s HTML code.
Next, integrate PPC call tracking into your paid advertisements. Google offers a phone number ad extension, or you can also integrate numbers into ad copy or within the imagery of display ads.
Finally, assess complete ad performance and conversion rate by feeding your call-tracking data into web analytics and PPC platforms. Depending on the call tracking solution used, this data can be automatically piped into your PPC account dashboard.

With call tracking integrated into your PPC campaigns, you can have a complete view of conversions, even when a lead picks up the phone to call. Analyze your campaigns; test new keywords, ads, bid strategies and landing pages; then evolve based on conversion data, and start the process again.

What successes have you had using call tracking for PPC?

Features, Tips, & Announcements — 3 Comments
9
Sep 11

Tips to Track Leads from Presentations

Events, tradeshows, webinars and training classes are likely a part of your marketing mix. However, it can be hard to measure the impact these activities have on sales without proper reporting solutions in place. For example, do you know how many new business calls you received as a result of these presentations?

In this post, we overview how call tracking can provide you with greater insight into the topics, audiences and delivery methods that offer the biggest lead potential.

Presentations and Call Tracking

Integrate unique call tracking numbers into your presentations to automatically associate calls with specific marketing initiatives. This allows you to more readily track resulting conversions and evaluate the success of individual events.

Tracking numbers can easily be added to contact slides within your presentation or to event-specific landing pages on your website. When designating and tracking numbers, consider the following:

Differentiate by Presentation Delivery Method

To determine the best-performing presentation format and delivery method, we recommend using a different call tracking number for each presentation type. For example, you may give a presentation at a conference and then post the slides online. In this case, consider using a different number for each format to gain more in-depth reporting.

Keep a Dashboard of Related Event Details

Within your call tracking dashboard, note specific presentation and event details, including: audience, venue, geographic location, crowd size, event promotions, and whether it was a paid or free opportunity. In doing so, you’ll be able to identify trends, and better determine the kinds of engagements that drive the most qualified leads.

Look at Leads Collectively

Placing a call is one of many ways that a lead can contact you after viewing a presentation. Therefore, it’s important to note that phone call tracking is only one piece of the solution when evaluating event success. Be sure to integrate it with web analytics, onsite feedback and social media metrics to get a more complete picture.

Collectively, this information can be used to determine which events and presentation formats are worth your investment in the future. This can be particularly helpful for paid speaking gigs that may not be worth pursuing if you don’t generate new business.

Your Thoughts?

How do you measure the effectiveness of your presentations? Have you tried call tracking? Why or why not? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Features, Tips, & Announcements — No Comments
31
Aug 11

Call Tracking 101: How to Integrate Call Tracking Into Your Marketing Campaigns

Marketing in the past relied heavily on the “spray and pray” mentality—if you could get your message in front of enough people, at least a few would be compelled to take action. With limiting reporting available to directly tie tactics to results, many campaigns were simply shots in the dark.

Today’s marketer has the technology available to report on prospect interactions and conversions from specific marketing activities, and use that data to evolve campaigns based on results.

Most marketers now use web analytics to understand how leads interact with their brand online, but what happens when a prospect picks up the phone?

With more users browsing the web via mobile devices, companies are likely to receive more offline customer calls and conversions. And let’s not forget that some people simply prefer to call, especially when dealing with local businesses. With a call tracking solution, you can find out what marketing activities prompt these offline conversions.

Two Ways to Implement Call Tracking

There are two simple ways to incorporate call tracking into your marketing analytics: one-to-one and Javascript integrations. Following are details about both methods, including how they work and best practices.

One-to-One Integration

The Basics: The idea behind one-to-one integration is to assign unique call tracking numbers to specific marketing tactics, campaigns or activities. For example, if you are running a series of print advertisements across several publications, assign a unique call tracking number to each publication, and then integrate the number into the corresponding ads. As a call comes in, you’ll know which publication prompted the call.

How It Works: It’s automated. As calls are logged, your call tracking solution will record the conversion, associate it with the proper marketing activity, and keep this data on file for your team to review and analyze.

When To Use It: One-to-one integration is ideal for marketing activities that take place off your website, often more traditional tactics. Think of campaigns that engage leads when they are offline, such as:

Billboard and Print Advertisements
Television and Radio Advertisements or Placements
Mobile Messaging Campaigns
Promotional Fliers
Guerrilla Marketing Tactics

Javascript Integration

The Basics: A Javascript snippet, provided by your call tracking platform, is code integrated throughout your website, similar to analytics tracking code, that provides detailed reporting of visitor activity that leads to a phone call.

How It Works: This Javascript snippet captures site visitor information and displays a unique phone number to each visitor on your website. The number follows the user from page to page via a cookie that is automatically installed on his or her browser. Even if a visitor leaves the website, as long as the cookie hasn’t been cleared, he or she will see their same phone number upon return.

When a user picks up the phone to call, the call tracking solution associates the call with the corresponding visitor information gathered online. This information—including source, landing page and last page visited—is recorded and stored for your team to review and analyze.

When To Use It: Javascript integration is ideal for campaigns that drive audiences to your website, and those that require higher level of tracking detail. Because the code captures each lead’s historical data, and doesn’t have to be tied to specific campaigns, reports can give insight into the overall effectiveness of your marketing activities as a whole. Use Javascript integration to measure the results of the following marketing tactics, and more:

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Pay Per Click (PPC)
Online Advertisements
Link-Building Campaigns

Using data and reports from call tracking, you can determine which marketing campaigns, activities and messages resonate with your audience and generate more leads. When tied to a CRM, you can also determine the sales value and ROI of your efforts. With this information, you can make smarter decisions on how to invest your time and budgets.

What questions do you have about call tracking?

Features, Tips, & Announcements — No Comments
17
Aug 11

How Conversion Tracking Can Drive Content Marketing

Content marketing strategies are often based on market trends, business objectives or messaging. However, to help guide content marketing efforts to best meet buyer
needs, marketers should use analytics and conversion metrics to ensure that content is both topically relevant and easy for qualified audiences to find.

With web analytics and call tracking solutions, marketers can collect conversion information and track secondary lead activity generated by content, which can be used to
further optimize efforts and improve ROI.

Develop Content Ideas and Promotion Strategy

Analytics can help marketers identify the topics that drive visitors, and then use this information to develop related content to spur download-driven lead conversions. Following are metrics your marketing team can use to identify content topics, and the best place to publish:

Traffic-Driving Keywords — Review the keywords that drive visitors to your website, and to your competitors’ website. You can do this through your own web analytics, and using tools like alexa.com, which shows high-impact search queries for any website. What products or services are they interested in, and can you develop relevant content about that topic to convert these searchers into leads? Also consider long-tail keyword traffic for common themes or questions that arise
Top Landing and Content Pages — What pages do visitors land on and click through to most often, but have limited conversions? Develop related content to feature on these pages as a way to promote lead conversions.
Traffic Sources — What website traffic sources have historically driven the most leads? Consider partner websites, guest posts, social media, eNewsletters, advertisements and more. Identify your leading sources, and integrate them into your content promotion strategy.

Track Content Marketing Success

Strengthen your content marketing efforts by tracking resulting conversions. Integrate analytics tracking code and call tracking to know what content spurs secondary action from your leads.

Within Actual Content — Offer users multiple ways to convert throughout content pieces. For example, include a campaign-specific phone number in eBooks and white papers that you associate with the asset in your call-tracking platform. For audiences that prefer to contact you online, or may not be ready to buy, include links to web contact forms and subscription pages for your blog or eNewsletter
Throughout Your Website — Make sure to capture as much visitor-activity information as possible. With call tracking, you can install a Javascript snippet that tracks sources of phone calls, enabling you to associate a call from a web visitor that clicked through to your site from a content piece. In addition, use web analytics to track online conversions, as well as their related sources, mediums and campaigns.
Test and Evolve— By strategically developing content for your buyers and properly tracking all conversions, you can continually adjust campaigns, messages and calls to action based on ROI.

If you’re interested in more information about conversion tracking and content marketing, check out the blog post How to Track Content Marketing Lead Conversions.

How has your company used conversion tracking to drive its content marketing efforts?

Analytics / Call Tracking — No Comments
31
May 11

Analyze Online and Offline Conversions with Web Analytics and Call Tracking

Online marketing campaign success is often based on the number of quality leads generated.

As marketers, our ability to generate these leads is contingent on being able to effectively track and monitor campaign performance. Information related to which campaigns are driving conversions, and which aren’t, gives us the insight needed to make informed campaign updates and budget allocation decisions.

Gathering this information starts with making sure the right tools are in place to account for all campaign initiatives that may be generating leads. Effective campaign conversion tracking is reliant on two tracking tools — web analytics and call tracking.

Web Analytics

Website analytic programs, such as Google Analytics and Adobe/Omniture, are fairly commonplace at this point. They offer valuable insight into how visitors found a site, how they interacted with it and whether or not they converted via a web form, content download or online purchase.

When choosing a web analytics program, make sure it tracks traffic sources, pageviews, pages/visit, time on site, bounce rate and — most importantly — online conversions. In addition, it should allow for the integration of call tracking data.

Call Tracking

The one drawback to web analytic programs is they can only track and record online activity. So as soon as someone chooses to take his or her activities offline by making a phone call, all valuable lead information is lost, for example: traffic source, web activity and conversion page.

Fortunately, advancements in call tracking technology over the past three years have created viable options to record offline conversions.

Call tracking solutions document how a visitor arrived to a website, and then feature a dynamic, session-based phone number specific to that traffic source throughout the site. As soon as a visitor calls the number, the conversion and associated web traffic details are logged.

When selecting a call tracking solution program, make sure that it integrates with your web analytics. Through this integration, offline conversion data can be displayed right next to visitors’ website activity and online conversions, providing a complete campaign performance snapshot.

Campaign Conversion Audit

Once the tracking tools are selected, the next step is to audit and catalog the various ways a lead may convert. This involves indexing all the calls to action throughout your site, including phone numbers, lead forms, resource or coupon downloads, and online purchases.

Be as thorough as possible to ensure nothing is overlooked. Any conversion point that isn’t tracked is potentially an opportunity missed or budget wasted.

Set Up Tracking

As soon as all conversion points are listed, make sure each is set up to be tracked by either web analytics or call tracking.

• For web form completions — Make sure that upon completing web forms, visitors are redirected to a “thank you” page. This enables you to easily track form completions by looking at traffic to these pages. In your web analytics program, tag any traffic these pages get as a conversion.

• For resource or coupon downloads — Tag each PDF download link with a snippet of JavaScript that records a virtual pageview every time it’s clicked. In your web analytics program, make sure that every time a virtual pageview occurs, it is logged as a conversion. Reference your analytics program’s help section to find this snippet, and instructions on how to install and track it.

• For phone calls — Look closely at the various ways your campaign may drive traffic to the site. This may include organic search, PPC campaigns, websites featuring banner ads, social media activity and more. In your call analytics program, assign specific call tracking numbers to each traffic source. Once your numbers are assigned, install the provided call tracking code into your site.

Monitor and Review

Once you’ve got your campaigns organized and conversion tracking systems in place, it’s time to monitor campaign performance.

Compare each campaign’s conversions to the budget and time you are allocating to it, and compare them to one another. This should yield a good understanding of marketing return by campaign — which initiatives are providing a good ROI, and which are not.

For under-performing campaigns, test different ways to improve and monitor conversion results until you see the return you want. Using this data, you’ll be able to see which campaign updates are making the biggest difference, keeping things status quo or hurting performance.

Finally, study the data you’ve collected regarding what activities, updates and budget allocations seem to translate into additional conversions, and then apply the lessons learned to other campaigns.

How do you use web analytics and call tracking to optimize your marketing?

Analytics / Call Tracking — No Comments
25
May 11

Improve Lead Nurturing Campaigns with Web Analytics and Call Tracking

Lead nurturing email campaigns enable you to stay foremost in the minds of prospects, while educating them on the benefits of your product or service and motivating them to progress further down the sales funnel.

Additionally, with today’s highly sophisticated web analytics and call tracking tools you can quickly establish a feedback loop to assess success in real-time.

To motivate recipients to take action, you need to clearly express what you want them to do and describe the value they’ll receive in return. An effective way to communicate this is through calls to action.

Following are some tips to incorporate calls to action into your lead nurturing campaign emails and track resulting activity:

Call to Action Options

• Link to online content – Links to eBooks, whitepapers, blogs, brochures, coupons and other online content are effective ways to drive recipients back to your website where they can engage with you further. For peak visibility, add links to banners, feature them within or below content, or incorporate graphic, eye-catching buttons. For example, include a text link below your main email message that says, “Download a 10% Off Coupon Here.”

• Phone number – For those leads who are motivated to contact you but prefer to speak to a person, you should consider including a phone number with a reason to call. For example, “Call today to speak with a sales representative.” These numbers can be featured in your email banner, directly within content, or called out in a right- or left-hand email column.

• Contact form – Web forms offer a convenient way for recipients to request to be contacted, download a valuable piece of content or register for a webinar. Integrate these forms into your email’s main content section or right- or left-hand column and include a compelling message. For example, “Register Today Only.”

Whichever calls to action you choose, make sure to include a compelling message that clearly details which action you want a recipient to take and what they will get for clicking or calling. This message should always answer the question, “What’s in it for me?”

Assessing Email Campaign Performance with Web Analytics and Call Tracking

As with any other marketing initiative, to yield the best return you’ll need to continuously test and evolve your lead nurturing calls to action.

For this reason, it’s important to integrate tracking tools that will enable you to capture and record any resulting web activity, as well as both online and offline conversions.

Web analytics

With most analytics programs, you can add tags to the end of a link so that as soon as someone arrives to your site via that link, your web analytics software automatically associates the visit with a specific lead-nurturing email. For example, Google Analytics offers this URL Builder that can add multiple tags to the end of a URL.

Depending on your phone call tracking needs, you may add the same tag to all your email links, or tag each link individually. Consider individual tags if you want to understand which link formats, locations or messages are most effective at generating clicks.

To record form completions, after someone submits their information via an email form, direct them to a unique thank-you web page. Within your analytics program, associate any visits to this web page as a conversion. Since only individuals who have completed the email form will land on this page, you can accurately track these as conversions.

Call tracking

Call tracking software enables you to associate any phone calls with a specific lead-nurturing campaign. This can be done in two ways:

• Assign and include a unique tracking phone number in your lead nurturing email. Any calls that result will be automatically be associated with the email and reported in your dashboard.

• Integrate the small Javascript snippet (provided by your call tracking vendor) throughout your website. This snippet will automatically show a unique phone number to each website visitor and associate the number with how the visitor arrived on the site, for example via your lead-nurturing email. Any calls that come into this number are then automatically associated with your email and reported in your dashboard.

Remember, it’s important to continuously experiment with the format, messaging and location of your lead nurturing calls to action. Only through this test-and-evolve process can you ensure the greatest results on your campaign.

How do you use lead nurturing calls to action to improve campaign performance?

Analytics / PPC / Sales / Search Marketing — No Comments
17
May 11

Four Marketing Reports That Maximize Sales Efforts

Marketers rely on both web analytics and call tracking solutions to effectively track and record marketing campaign performance. The reports provided by these tools help marketers effectively analyze campaign performance, evolve activities and reallocate budgets to improve lead volume and quality.

From a sales perspective, these reports also are extremely valuable because they encourage the sales team to more effectively prioritize leads and customize pitches, which in turn helps to convert new customers and drive business growth.

Therefore, it is important that marketers provide this information to their sales departments, either by sharing access to tracking-tool dashboards or integrating these reports directly into CRM solutions.

Following are four tracking reports that, when shared with sales teams, can improve their ability to convert leads to customers:

1. Lead Source

Different marketing campaigns use different messaging, offers and calls to action. By tying a lead to a specific source (i.e. PPC, email, print advertisement, or billboard), you can show sales what motivated the prospect to convert into a lead. This information can then be integrated directly into sales pitches and follow-up communications.

In addition, if the lead source is a search engine, the keyword searched will also help sales professionals understand the specific need that brought in the lead.

2. Website Activity / Conversion Page

The pages a lead visits on your website — and particularly the conversion page — give sales professionals a good understanding of the topics the prospect is interested in, what messaging resonated, and what call-to-action motivated him or her.

Again, sales professionals can use this information to better structure sales pitches to more effectively satisfy the prospect’s needs.

3. Lead Details

The information offered by the lead, either via a web form or over the phone, is some of the most useful to sales professionals. Since the information comes directly from the lead, there is little guesswork or analysis needed to effectively tailor a sales pitch.

It’s important that your lead forms ask targeted questions, but without asking for so much information that leads are hesitant to complete it.

For phone conversions, make sure that your voicemail message asks the caller for exactly what you want to know, for example: name, phone number, reason for calling and best time to reach you. If you have inside sales representatives or customer service professionals answering incoming phone calls, you may also consider recording calls for future review.

4. Repeat Conversions

Each time a prospect completes a web form, downloads another piece of content or places additional phone calls, the hotter the lead.

By integrating your web analytics and call tracking solutions into your CRM software, you can accurately note when a lead re-converts, which further helps sales to prioritize follow-up communications, and ensure that motivated prospects get the highest level of attention.

How are you using marketing campaign tracking reports to support sales initiatives?

Features, Tips, & Announcements — No Comments
16
Feb 10

BIA/Kelsey Blogs about the power of Mongoose Metrics Call Tracking

By Michael Taylor, BIA Kelsey, February 16, 2010 — Link to BIA Kelsey blog here.

I had the opportunity to speak with Brad Reynolds, CEO of Mongoose Metrics a Cleveland, Ohio based call tracking and conversion analytics company. Brad was quick to point out that they are not simply a call tracking company, but a company dedicated to linking online and offline conversion so clients can better understand what leads to sales conversions. According to Brad, “Our business is based around illuminating the sales funnel related to offline conversions. Our goal is to make it easy to track online and offline conversions side-by-side. We want to drive actions like tweaking marketing spend and efforts with a full basket of information.”

While some companies focus entirely on online conversions, the reality, according to Mongoose Metrics, is that a large majority of transactions occur offline via the phone. In most cases there is a chain of events that lead to an offline conversion. By better understanding how online and offline media influence the conversion path, marketers have a better sense of what media and messages they should be using to maximize their effectiveness. With good offline and online conversion data in hand, brands can personalize their messages across media to create a conversation and a stronger relationship.

Mongoose Metrics has also been busy putting together an effective international local number tracking network and recently put together deals in Canada and the UK to deliver true local exchange numbers across both countries. Rather than relying on VoIP numbers or toll free numbers, Mongoose is now able to offer local telephone numbers better linking businesses to their local area. “Until recently, it had been nearly impossible for Canadian and UK companies to use local phone numbers to follow visitors from web-to-phone to understand how their websites drive phone calls and ultimately sales,” according to Reynolds. Mongoose Metrics move into the UK and Canada is a first step in expanding internationally.

When asked where call measurement is headed in the near term, Reynolds quickly pointed to mobile. “While many feel there will be transactions handled on the handset, the current reality is that most sites are not fully enabled for mobile screens, requiring too many clicks and too much scrolling. People want to get a quick answer to their question and often will revert to contacting the store or company since it is easier — and they have a phone in their hand to expedite the need for information. Click to call features makes sense on the mobile web and will offer yet another layer in understanding where offline conversions are initiated.”

When asked what other developments they are working on, Reynolds replied, “Mongoose is currently working on a few proprietary products to provide deeper analytics of incoming calls and hopes to create a way to trigger specific actions tied to a recognized set of keywords. This is yet another step Mongoose is taking to help drive conversions and personalize the communication between consumers and advertisers.”

Mongoose MetricsConversion & Call Tracking Blog