Dynamic Call Tracking and Marketing Attribution 

Read Time: Five Minutes

Dynamic call tracking used with other types of marketing attribution is a powerful tool that transforms marketing and sales teams and drives success. This robust combination can be used to close data gaps, tie revenue directly to ads, campaigns, and channels, and help teams to do more with less. 

Many marketing and sales teams are well-versed in marketing attribution and its benefits. However, often marketers think only of getting attribution for online activities. Tech stack tools like HubSpot, Google Analytics, and Salesforce make tracking and attributing these online activities easy. 

But what many marketers often miss is phone call tracking, attribution, and data. For most businesses, phone calls are still a crucial piece of a full attribution picture. An organization with even a small volume of incoming phone calls needs to use dynamic call tracking–or risk missing out on key data, leaving gaps in attribution.  

Use Call Tracking and Attribution to Close the Loops in Your Data

Getting the full picture of all of your marketing efforts or closed-loop attribution is crucial to marketing and sales success. Phone calls are almost always an important part of that picture. The higher the price tag on your product or service, the more likely a phone call will be part of your customer’s journey. Without data on inbound calls, your customer profile is incomplete. 

Phone calls are a big part of how businesses engage with customers and prospects. And, when it comes to phone calls, if you aren’t picking them up quickly and maximizing that time with your prospects you’re losing sales. According to Google, 70% of mobile searchers say they call a business from a mobile search ad and 85% say they won’t call back if their call isn’t answered the first time they ring in. With an average of 800 million phone calls being made a day, that’s a lot of calls your business could be missing. 

If your sales team is missing these calls, that’s bad—but if they’re only getting some of the calls and aren’t tracking and attributing them to the driving source,  that’s really bad. Why? Because then your marketing team is flying blind with only half of the picture. And with tightened marketing budgets today, that’s not a good idea. 

When you add dynamic call tracking to your marketing attribution tools like multi-touch attribution, you get full visibility into all of your marketing efforts. With this closed-loop attribution, you’ll understand the impact of each and every dollar spent–something both team members and stakeholders will appreciate. 

How Dynamic Call Tracking Works

Dynamic call tracking or simply call tracking, as it’s often called, uses dynamic number insertion. This technology dynamically swaps or changes the phone number someone sees based on the source. This phone number is called a tracking number. 

For example, if someone clicked on a Google Ad for your business they would be sent to a landing or website page and see a specific number. If, on the other hand, someone else clicked on a link from an email campaign, they’d see a different number on that same page. The number changes based on where they are coming from specifically. 

When each source, ad, or campaign, has a specific number associated with it, it’s easy to track which of these are driving the most phone calls. Teams can see at a glance whether a Google Ad using a new keyword, for example, is driving a lot of sales or if a billboard campaign is making your phone ring off the hook. 

How They Work Together

When you use dynamic call tracking to track inbound calls back to their originating source and pair it with marketing attribution models like multi-touch attribution, you get full insight into both online activities (like a form-fill) and offline activities (like a phone call). 

Used separately, you’ll only see one part of the attribution picture. 

Additionally, call tracking platforms like CallTrackingMetrics gives you one place to view, assess, and manage all of this data. No more going from one platform to the next to compile a report. CTM offers a streamlined and easy-to-digest view of all of this data with robust reporting and analytics. Dashboards let you see all online and offline activity from all sources, all in one place. 

With more than 40 no-code integrations with Google Ads and Analytics, HubSpot, and Salesforce, data is seamlessly integrated into one platform and managed in one synchronized place for easy access, analysis, and reporting. This saves teams time compiling reports so they can focus on working with the data instead of sorting it.  

7 Ways Phone Call Tracking and Marketing Attribution Benefit Companies

There are so many ways that using dynamic call tracking and marketing attribution benefits organizations. These powerful tools help teams to better understand which of their efforts are most effective, and which aren’t, and gain a clearer picture of the customer and their journey. 

Here are some of the most sought-after benefits of dynamic call tracking and marketing attribution: 

1. Track PPC Ad Performance

PPC ads, like Google Ads, can deliver big results. But, it’s vital to get insight into which ads, campaigns, and keywords are driving click-throughs, conversions, and the most revenue. With this information, PPC specialists can focus on what’s working best and where you’re getting the biggest bang for your buck. 

This is crucial information at any time, particularly in times of economic uncertainty when marketing budgets are being cut and teams are lean. 

In addition to helping PPC strategy, this information also helps SEO teams and your organization’s organic search results. SEO performance takes time to measure, however, PPC can offer quick wins and insight into which keywords SEO teams should focus on. When PPC and SEO teams work together and get full, comprehensive attribution data, they can drive more high-quality leads and conversions. 

2. Track Offline Campaign Performance

As mentioned, many marketers are tracking online performance, but it’s the offline activity that often makes the trail go cold. Dynamic call tracking not only tracks a simple phone call coming into your business to the source that prompted the call, but it also is capable of tracking any conversation–phone, text, chat, or form–back to its online or offline advertising source. 

This lets teams understand which specific channels, ads, campaigns, and keywords are tied to the most valuable interactions. Sales teams can see that certain ads using specific keywords tend to generate more phone calls. Marketing teams can uncover message inconsistencies when certain ads drive a lot of unqualified calls. 

3. Track Channel Performance

With dynamic call tracking and marketing attribution, you can track how certain channels are performing. For example, you may have PPC ads on Google and Bing. With full attribution, teams can assess not only which campaigns are doing the best, but which channels are the most effective too–giving you the data you need to make more informed choices about where to spend your marketing budget.

4. Prove ROI from Phone Calls

Many marketers who begin using call tracking are relieved when they can finally tie ads and campaigns directly to inbound calls. Gone are the days of hoping agents ask, ‘where did you hear about us?’. Teams are able to consistently prove ROI and include all offline activity, like phone calls. Phone calls often go overlooked–or teams just don’t know how to tie them into the attribution picture.

5. Get Closed-loop Attribution

Comprehensive, complete attribution data is essential in today’s competitive marketplace. If you only see part of the picture, your efforts will suffer. Closed-loop attribution results from connecting dynamic call tracking and marketing attribution so you get information on all customer interactions.  This gives you an edge over your competitors and insight into your ideal customer. 

6. Have Full Visibility in One Place

Getting full visibility is great, but getting it all in one place is even better. Platforms like CallTrackingMetrics offer integrations with marketers’ favorite tools so you can see all your data, from all sources, in one place. This makes marketers’ lives a lot easier and saves valuable time especially when your team is lean. 

No more jumping from one screen to another, pulling screenshots from everywhere, downloading data from numerous tools, then compiling it all into a report. You get everything you need right at your fingertips. 

7. Utilize Seamless Integrations

Speaking of tech tools, integrations with these tools are key to getting all of the information you want in one place. CTM offers more than 40 no-code and low-code integrations with marketers’ favorite tools. Developers also love our open API so you can connect with even the most customized software with ease. 

We also have a bi-directional integration with Google Ads. This lets you create triggers in that automate sending conversion data into Google Ads to inform your smart bidding campaigns. As one of the only providers in the space, CTM has the ability to directly influence conversions for click-to-call and click-to-landing pages in Google Ads.

How to Get Started

There’s a lot you can do once you get started with dynamic call tracking and marketing attribution. If you want to track specific keywords, channels, or ads, you can do that. If you want to focus on how one Google Ad is driving offline activity–you can do that too. 

When you pair these two powerful tools, the data you can source, the patterns you can uncover, and the insights you can gain are virtually endless. 

If you’re new to marketing attribution, learn more about it and which models to choose for your organization and goals. This is the same for call tracking; if you’re new, start off slowly and build. How you customize your call tracking and marketing attribution will depend on your short and long-term goals. 

See for yourself how dynamic call tracking amplifies your full marketing attribution picture  to impact your business. Book a Demo today and start seeing the full picture tomorrow.