What is Call Tracking & How Call Tracking Software Works

It’s crucial for marketers to have a deep understanding about the campaigns they run and the audiences they target. The more information marketers have, the better they can personalize and optimize the content they create, which means more clicks and conversions.

Call tracking is one way to get this knowledge. It will help you gain a deeper understanding of the people buying from you and market more effectively.

Call Tracking Definition & How It Works

Call tracking is a performance marketing technique. With this technique, every ad or campaign receives a unique number. With call tracking, you can document more information from every single call. You can use trackable phone numbers to connect your customers’ digital journey with phone calls.

To get more specific, if a customer calls your company and you track the calls, you can see what ads, keywords, or websites drove them to call you. From there, the conversational analytics of call tracking platforms can analyze the language in the call. This can automate the search for common pain points or keywords. It can also automate the process of checking whether the call turned into a conversion, such as giving a quote or making an appointment.

All of this is possible thanks to the use of snippets of code instead of static phone numbers. This code lets the phone number be slightly different depending on where customers get the number from. Some call tracking solutions will use a slightly different system, but the results are the same. 

12 Benefits of Call Tracking

Call tracking is crucial for every marketing campaign that involves phone calls—or for any business that uses the phone at all. But why? It comes down to the numerous benefits that call tracking delivers.

1. Calls Are Crucial for Conversions

While other communication methods are growing in popularity, calls remain crucial. 84% of marketers told Forrester that phone calls still have higher conversion rates, along with higher average order values.

The call tracking data lets you make the most of this, optimizing your sales and conversions. Keep the importance of phone calls in mind as you explore the other benefits of call tracking software. After all, the more important phone conversations are, the greater impact you will see from each of the benefits. 

2. Find Overall Call Trends

At the most basic level, call tracking software makes it easy to identify trends related to when customers call, how long calls last, and more. Use that data to ensure that you have enough staff on hand during peak hours. You may also save on labor costs by reducing staff during slow times.

3. Better Understand Your Leads

As mentioned, one of the most important benefits of call tracking software is the way it helps you understand your leads. Tracking calls means you have more data about who calls you, where they are calling from, and more. Use that information in your marketing efforts. 

4. Track ROI From Specific Campaigns

Because call tracking lets you assign unique numbers to each marketing campaign, you can more easily track the ROI from each specific marketing campaign. This can give you valuable insights into which campaigns work well or deliver the best results.

5. Optimize Spend

You can then use those insights to better allocate your marketing funds. Put more dollars towards campaigns that are working well, optimizing your investment.

You can optimize your marketing expenditures in several ways using data from call tracking software. You can focus on a marketing campaign that drives more leads. Or you can focus on those that deliver higher quality leads.

Of course, the result of optimizing your expenditures is that you will also reduce waste in your advertising budget. Let every dollar go further.

6. Gives Credit to Marketers for Driving Leads

For teams with multiple marketers, call tracking is an excellent way to ensure every marketer receives the credit they are due for the leads they drive.

7. Optimize Performance

In addition to ensuring marketers receive credit for their leads, call tracking can help optimize their performance. Additionally, you can look for trends indicating which marketers may need additional training and which marketers may be ready to share useful tips.

8. Route Automatically

You can use a call tracking tool to automatically route calls to the best available agent, depending on the origin of the lead or other data. This can improve your efficiency and the customer experience, as they won’t have to deal with a phone tree or being transferred multiple times.

That automatic routing can also give your team context about the calls they receive. Combine that with programs like Podium that pull up past interactions with the reviews written by the person calling, and you get even more valuable context to maximize customer service.

9. Find Keywords and Phrasing to Use–Or Points to Highlight

With the right data from call tracking, you can discover keywords or phrases to use in your marketing efforts or to have your team use when interacting with customers.

For example, maybe you notice that most people who call from one of your campaigns mention a specific pain point. You can then create copy about that pain point and add it to the existing campaign to boost its success.

10. Enhance Caller Profiles

Your agents will deliver the best results over the phone if they have some data on the person calling. That’s why Podium brings up information about recent calls, emails, and reviews. But call tracking software can give you even more data the next time the same person calls. The exact information varies depending on the call tracking systems. But you can see information about past calls and maybe even keywords used.

11. Retarget Callers

The conversational analytics of call tracking systems doesn’t just help you find trends like pain points or get details on specific callers. It also gives you the information you can use to retarget callers. From segmentation to evaluating whether someone would be open to being retargeted, this can help in various ways.

12. Can Include Recordings

Many call tracking software systems will record calls and save a copy of them. This can be incredibly useful if customers make a complaint or claim your agent agreed to something they never said.

How to Choose a VoIP System That Includes Call Tracking

When deciding which VoIP system your business should use, call tracking should be one of your considerations. You also want to look at the following:

• Cost-effectiveness and value
• Scalability
• Flexibility
• Integration with other systems and software
• Customer service
• Security features

The available features can be broad, but you want to look for conferencing, auto-attendants, interactive voice response, voicemail, and call forwarding.

If you choose the right VoIP service, you won’t need separate call tracking software, as it will already be integrated. At the very least, choose a VoIP system that can easily integrate with call tracking software. And remember that any system should give you at least basic call tracking and analytics.

Get Started with Podium Phones

To enjoy call tracking software built into your phone system, opt for Podium Phones.

Podium Phones displays all the call tracking data from previous calls, as well as every message, review, and other interaction. This way, your agents have valuable context for every single one of the phone calls they receive.