What is Dynamic Number Insertion?

Dynamic number insertion (DNI) is an often-overlooked tool that connects the dots in your customer’s sales journey. But just what is dynamic number insertion and why is it important? 

Dynamic number insertion is simply the use of a code on your website that dynamically responds to visitors based on where they’re coming from. With DNI, phone numbers shown on the website page are automatically, or dynamically, swapped as a result of certain factors like the visitor’s location, source, keyword searched, ad campaign, etc. This lets you track every call that comes into your business and accurately associate it to its source and available session data. 

A core element of call tracking, dynamic number insertion,  is one of the best ways to maximize your marketing budget, prove ROI for your marketing campaigns, and gain insight into your customers. With DNI, you’ll get insight to confidently know where to focus your ad spend and where to pull back–both key to marketing success and great for your marketing budget. When people ask, “what is dynamic number insertion?” most have no idea just how much it can actually do for their marketing and sales success. 

Don’t Let the Trail Go Cold 

With dynamic number insertion, you don’t lose sight of your prospects and customers when they go offline and pick up the phone. For most marketers, tracking online activity is simple. Form fills, downloads, emails, and other online interactions are easily connected with their online source. However, what happens when someone picks up the phone? Unfortunately for many marketers, that’s where the trail goes cold, leaving gaps in data. Dynamic number insertion uses technology that lets you connect offline conversions with the online activities that drove them. 

For example, if someone sees a social post and they click on it, the phone number that is shown on the website page where they land is the same number everyone who clicks on that same social post will see. On the other hand, someone who came to your site after searching on Google will see an entirely different phone number.

When paired with call tracking, dynamic number insertion helps you track how many phone calls you are getting from exactly which source. When you know what ads, keywords, and channels are driving the most leads, you know better where to focus ad spend–and you can clearly prove the ROI of all of your marketing efforts. 

More Phone Calls and Mobile Searches Drives Need for Dynamic Number Insertion

Today, it’s more important than ever to track phone calls and accurately attribute leads and conversions. Research shows that more people are using their phones for searches and making calls based on those searches. With the increase in phone calls to businesses, it’s vital to precisely track what source, or sources, generated that call. 

According to a New York Times article, Chris Sambar, AT&T’s executive vice president of technology and operations, said phone calls have been increasing for both business and personal communications. “Voice is the new killer app,” Sambar said. “It’s been a real surprise.”

It’s an easy transition from searching for a product or service, finding a business of interest, and simply clicking on the ‘click to call’ button to connect. The use of mobile phones for searching is growing each year. In fact, mobile searches grew from 177.8 million in 2016 to 211 million in 2020. Additionally, phone calls, in general, have also seen a dramatic increase since the pandemic. According to Verizon, they are handling an average of more than 800 million wireless calls each day. This number is more than double their normal busiest calling day–Mother’s Day. 

When calls come into businesses, it can be difficult to track what prompted each person to call. Yet this information is critical to business success. Relying on agents to ask, “where did you hear about us?” is an inefficient system too many organizations count on to determine what ads are working, and which aren’t. When you don’t know which ads are driving leads and conversions, you can’t strategically allocate your marketing budget.  Call tracking with dynamic number insertion offers a better way. 

When you can clearly see what’s motivating prospects to pick up the phone you can effectively assess ad spend, target the right keywords, and create more valuable content. The unprecedented increase in calls isn’t likely to fade. If your organization isn’t utilizing DNI and call tracking, you could be missing out on valuable insight and data. Now’s the perfect time to be asking, “what is dynamic number insertion?” and discover precisely what it can do for your organization.

What is Dynamic Number Insertion for Sales and Marketing?

5 Ways DNI Helps Sales and Marketing 

The technology behind DNI and call tracking is impressive. Being able to show one person a certain phone number and then the next person from a different source a different number helps tremendously with tracking and attributing leads and conversions. But dynamic number insertion and call tracking go much further than that. Here are some ways dynamic number insertion can help your organization:  

1. Focus ad spend

Gone are the days of hypothetically throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks. Dynamic number insertion allows you to assign specific phone numbers to specific ads so you can see in real-time what’s working and what’s not. Each ad or group of ads has a specific number connected to it. This lets you see what channels and content within those channels are driving the most calls and conversions. Being able to see exactly where you’re getting the most qualified leads, the most conversions–as well as the least of both–lets you know exactly where to put more of your budget and where to cut it. 

      2. Gain a deeper understanding of your customer

The competition is fierce to win leads and being able to personalize your prospects’ and customers’ experiences can make the difference between a sale and a loss. With DNI you get firsthand insight into your target audience. Certain call tracking programs provide demographic information about your caller so sales agents can tailor their communications to that person. 

In addition to this basic demographic information, you can also discover: 

• Where your target audience spends most of their time online 
• Which types of content they prefer
• Which online sources they engage with the most
• What keywords they use to search for your industry or organization

Today, it’s all about providing the most exceptional customer experiences at every touchpoint of the buyer’s journey. Personalizing online messaging, real-time conversations, and product or service recommendations based on each individual’s unique needs is essential to win customers–and keep them! 

     3. Know what content and types of content to create

There’s a plethora of content online these days. You’ll see blogs, articles, website pages, infographics, eBooks, case studies, etc. Producing this content takes time and money so it’s vital to understand what types of content your prospects prefer and also what topics are interesting to them. Call tracking and DNI helps you to gain an understanding of this. 

With dynamic number insertion, you’ll see what types of content your target audience likes. In addition, you can look for trends in what types of content are driving the most calls and the most conversions. This will help you to better allocate resources to what types of material your audience really wants.

For example, say your team produces a 25-page eBook about producing audio ads. The time spent on this book is significant. However, after six months you find there are only three downloads of the eBook and no calls have come through from the number on the eBook’s landing page. You’ll want to reconsider spending the time and resources on this type of content again. 

However, on the other hand, your team could produce a short infographic on the same topic using fewer resources. After six months, the infographic has been downloaded 10 times and has driven five phone calls resulting in three conversions. You see that your audience prefers shorter content but is interested in the topic. This will help you save time, money, and resources. You’ll also be able to produce content that your customers value in a format they want. This provides a better customer experience and nurtures customer relationships. 

     4. Focus keyword strategy

Another benefit is that you can see exactly what keywords your customers and prospects are using to find your business. By getting direct insight into which keywords are driving the most contacts and conversions, you’ll know which keywords to continue to include in marketing campaigns. Tracking keywords and conversions over time can add significant value to your overall keyword strategy. 

SEO and keyword strategy usually take a few months to really see results. Many times marketers strategize for a certain keyword or keyword group for months only to find out they’re getting zero traffic from their efforts. Dynamic number insertion and call tracking let you see in real-time, what keywords are driving qualified leads and conversions and which aren’t. 

     5. Optimize products and services

Gaining more insight into your customers is key to winning sales and creating loyal, raving fans. When you are attuned to your prospect and customers’ needs and wants, you’ll be able to respond to them with content and with changes and adaptations of products and services. DNI can help with this too. When you know what product or service pages are driving the most calls and conversions you’ll know which to optimize or promote. 

As you can see, when dynamic number insertion is used in conjunction with call tracking, you can gain leaps and bounds with your marketing efforts. Now that you have an answer to “What is dynamic number insertion?”, it’s important to know that not all DNI software programs are created equally. There are certain capabilities that you’ll want to look for when it comes to dynamic number insertion and call tracking. 

6 Must-Have DNI Capabilities

1. Omnichannel Attribution

It’s great to know where your caller found you right before they picked up the phone. Many marketers have been relying solely on this information. However, what happens to the caller who first clicked on a PPC ad, then looked at a few website pages, then left only to come back from a social media link the next day and then place a call? It’s vital to know all of the places your customer interacted with your business on their journey. 

Omnichannel attribution makes this happen. This technology keeps track of your visitor’s first touch, last touch–and every touchpoint along the way. This way if a prospect goes cold and then returns months later, you can still track their full journey from start to finish and where they engaged along the way. 

Our software at CallTrackingMetrics lets you track every call, form fill, chat, and text seamlessly. CTM’s dynamic number insertion technology shows you the journey of touchpoints your visitor had before calling you. You’ll learn: 

• Which channel led them to your website
• Which tracking number they called
• Which PPC ad they clicked on
• Which keyword they searched to find you
• What landing page took them to your site

Having all of this information eliminates gaps in data letting you make confident, data-backed marketing decisions. 

     2. Multiple Types of Phone Numbers

Every business has unique needs when it comes to phone numbers and dynamic number insertion. For some organizations, appearing local is important for others, appealing to a more national–or even international audience is the goal. Being able to choose from local, toll-free, and vanity numbers enables all types of businesses to use DNI how it works best for them. 

Local Numbers

For industries, like home services, healthcare, and legal, where it’s important for prospects to know you’re local, you can select numbers based on callers’ areas. GeoContact® makes this happen. With GeoContact, you can be local, globally. This technology lets you dynamically display a phone number based on the visitor’s geographic location. 

This is particularly helpful for franchises and businesses with nationwide locations who want to display local numbers for all locations. For example, an organization may have several locations across different regions and even countries. GeoContact enables a visitor from Ireland to see one phone number local to Ireland when they visit your site while a different visitor from the United States will see another number local to their area in the U.S. GeoContact pairs numbers and locations down to the area code in the United States and Canada. 

GeoContact displays a phone number unique to their geographic location. That phone number also is based on what ad is driving them.  Not only does this let you provide a more personalized customer experience, but you can also track and attribute these calls to all of their touchpoints. 

Toll-free and Vanity Numbers 

If your business wants a national or international appeal, you can also choose toll-free numbers for dynamic number insertion. In addition to local and toll-free numbers, some dynamic number insertion technology, like CTMs’, works with vanity numbers too. A vanity number is a number that spells out your business’s name or service and is memorable. For example, 1-800-FLOWERS and 1-800-CONTACTS. There are a lot of options to suit the needs of multiple types of industries and different-sized organizations. 

Porting Numbers

If you already own some phone numbers, many companies let you port or transfer these numbers. With a streamlined porting process you can immediately begin tracking data from these phone numbers and continue to manage calls to these numbers during the porting process. CallTrackingMetrics lets you port existing numbers easily and quickly. 

It’s important to consider your organization’s unique needs when it comes to types of numbers. Be sure you choose a provider who offers not only the type of numbers your company needs today but also those it may need down the road. 

     3. Pay for what you use

There are different ways that various call tracking organizations handle how many numbers you buy. Some, look at the total number of website visitors and assign a specified amount of phone numbers. These are evenly distributed amongst channels like Google, PPC ads, web pages, etc. Unfortunately, with this approach, you aren’t able to control which of your priority channels get the most numbers. 

Our preferred method looks at your total number of site visitors from each channel and suggests numbers based on each specific channel. The more traffic one sight gets, the more numbers you’ll want to put there. This way you can focus your numbers (and money) on the sources that bring in the most viable leads and conversions. Some call tracking platforms give you a bulk amount of numbers spread out equally across all channels. This leaves you unable to control which channels get more numbers and which less. 

With a more tailored approach, you use fewer numbers and save money. In addition, you can tailor your numbers to align better with your overall marketing strategy. 

     4. Caller data

Call tracking and dynamic number insertion software should capture information about your caller. What exactly is captured is unique to each organization and provider. Here are some items you’ll want to be sure your provider captures: 

• Caller name, address, phone
• Source (where they are coming from)
• Tracking number called 

When agents, sales managers, and marketing teams have real-time information about their callers, they are better able to customize the experience for the caller and provide more valuable and helpful information on a case-by-case basis. When the specific problems a caller is experiencing are addressed immediately, it proves for a much better customer experience. 

     5. Call details

Not only do you want to get insight into your caller, but also what happened on the call. You’ll want to find out at least some of the following information that CallTrackingMetrics provides: 

• New caller or repeat caller
• Last contact date
• Last contact type (chat, text, call, etc.)
• Length of last contact
• Agent associated with last contact
• Result of last contact

The more information you know not only about your caller but also about their past interactions with your organization will help you to provide better customer service. When you track who’s calling, why they’re calling, and what problems they have, you can get deeper insight into how you can help them. 

     6. Call scoring & lead scoring capabilities

Streamlining processes helps to save time and money. Using dynamic number insertion with advanced capabilities enables you to automate certain processes like call scoring and lead scoring. This means that when a customer or prospect calls, you can set up certain parameters that will let you automatically ‘score’ the call. Call scoring and lead scoring both save time, help to align sales and marketing, and let sales focus on the highest scoring calls and leads first. 

There are many ways that using dynamic number insertion can help your marketing efforts. When you begin to explore ways to enhance your marketing, consider dynamic number insertion and call tracking software. Getting firsthand, real-time insight into your customers, what resonates with them, and which campaigns are driving the most conversions can transform your marketing. 

CallTrackingMetrics offers insight into the customer journey and connects the dots in data gaps so you can confidently make marketing decisions, prove ROI, and drive conversions. Book a demo today and start driving leads! 

DNI FAQs

1. How much does DNI cost? 

The cost of DNI varies depending on several factors including 

• The number of phone numbers you need, typically the more numbers you need, the higher the costs. 
• Features and functionalities can increase the cost. Some providers offer basic DNI with call tracking, while others offer additional features like call recording, analytics, and integrations. 
• Contract length can adjust the costs. Some providers offer discounts for longer contracts. 

It’s important to research different call tracking provider and compare their pricing plans based on your specific needs. 

2. What are the potential downsides or limitations of using DNI? 

While DNI offers valuable benefits, there are also some potential downsides to consider: 

• Technical complexity can be a challenge for some. Setting up and managing DNI can involve some technical knowledge, especially for complex setups with multiple phone numbers and integrations. 
• User experience concerns like privacy from assigning different phone numbers based on user behavior might raise concerns for some users. It’s crucial to be transparent about how you use DNI and comply with relevant data privacy regulations. 
• Potential for user confusion from seeing various phone numbers on a website or across marketing materials, especially if the context behind the different numbers isn’t clear. 

Carefully evaluating your needs and implementing DNI thoughtfully can help minimize these potential drawbacks. 

3. How does DNI integrate with other marketing tools and platforms? 

Many call tracking solutions that offer DNI also integrate with various marketing tools and platforms like CRM systems, marketing automation tools, and analytics platforms. This integration allows you to: 

• Streamline your workflows with call data from DNI that’s automatically transferred to your CRM, eliminating manual data entry and saving time. 
• Gain deeper insights by combining call data with other marketing data (e.g., website visits, ad clicks). You get a more comprehensive understanding of your marketing funnel and customer journey
• Optimize your marketing campaigns with insights from DNI and other marketing tools for better lead generation and conversion rates. 

It’s important to choose a call tracking solution that offers integrations twitch the tools and platforms you already use in your marketing ecosystem.