Call Tracking & Analytics 101. Tactics to Improve Online / Offline Channel Efficiency

Transcription

1 Call Tracking & Analytics 101 Tactics to Improve Online / Offline Channel Efficiency

2 Summary US consumers will make more than 100 billion mobile calls to businesses this year, and are relying more and more on their smartphones to make buying decisions. Nearly two out of three consumers say it s very or extremely important to be able to call a business during their purchase journey. Call tracking and analytics have become a marketing technology must have as a result. But do you really know what the technology does or how it works? If not, you are not alone. This white paper offers a primer on how to use and benefit from call tracking and analytics. You will learn how to: Use click-to-call to increase your AdWords effectiveness. Utilize call tracking and still maintain SEO efficiency. Understand the relationship between your online and offline channels. Note: This white paper is based on a webcast from Digital Marketing Depot. Thanks to the original contributors: Michael Boland, Chief Analyst and VP at BIA/Kelsey, and Ross Kaplan-Winn, Search Engine Marketing Manager at Top Level Management. To view the on-demand version of this webcast, please visit: 2

3 Table of Contents Introduction 4 Mobile Search Drives Call Volumes 6 Social Apps: The Next Frontier 8 Trends Driving Marketing Spend 10 Call Tracking Benefits and Features 11 Scenario 1 You Are Not Currently Tracking Calls 13 Scenario 2 You are Currently Tracking Some Calls 15 Conclusion 17 3

4 Introduction Phone calls are becoming an increasingly valuable currency in digital marketing. With smartphone usage continuing to grow, more and more people are using their phones to search for and then call businesses. Marketers need to be driving, tracking, analyzing, and optimizing these inbound phone leads. Here are some key statistics on smartphone usage, the underlying driver: US smartphone penetration has reached 79% and is growing fast. (BIA/Kelsey) Some 51% of search query volume is taking place on smartphones. (Google) Half of mobile search queries have local intent. (BIA/Kelsey) Call Commerce Set to Grow Mobile ad revenues in the US will go from $22.7 billion in 2015 to almost $62.2 billion by 2020 (BIA/Kelsey). Importantly, the share of that total that is attributed to location-targeted mobile ads will grow from 37% to 43% by

5 Mobile Ad Share by Format Search is the leading form of mobile advertising and will continue to grow throughout that period. Search ads involve higher premiums than traditional display ads, but they also boast higher performance due to search s intent driven use case. 5

6 Mobile Search Drives Call Volumes Call volumes to businesses correlate strongly with mobile search, and are often driven from mobile search. Three out of four mobile searches trigger additional actions and conversions, such as visiting a store, making a purchase, or making phone calls (Google). These are all very highly-valued actions from the perspective of advertisers and businesses that are looking for tangible return on their ad spend. These actions are not just happening at high volumes, they are also happening quickly. Some 55% of purchase-related conversions take place within one hour of the initial search. Mobile users are lower funnel, high-intent consumers. They are literally an hour away from a conversion in many cases. The opportunity to influence buying decisions is high. Publishers and advertisers who aren t providing optimized content, or ads that include actionable cues, are missing a large opportunity. Source: Google, Nielsen 6

7 The Rise of Action Buttons Call-to-action buttons are one of the best ways to capture user intent. They can take many forms, and are becoming more prevalent as app developers take note of the mobile consumer s readiness to transact. While used mostly in search ads, buy and call buttons are becoming more prevalent in feed-based social media like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter. This is part of a push towards more actionoriented social content and app deep-linking. Despite the growing popularity of buy buttons, these only address ecommerce, which represents about 7% of US consumer spending. The much larger opportunity, therefore, lies in driving offline commerce. BIA/Kelsey predicts the use of action buttons will continue to grow, but will increasingly lean towards driving offline sales. This includes buttons to message a business, schedule an appointment, make a reservation and of course, click-to-call. 7

8 Social Apps: The Next Frontier Click-to-call is often thought of in the context of search, but opportunities also lie in the many other places that phone numbers appear within mobile channels. Everything is becoming more actionable. Display ads are increasingly dynamic, with embedded action buttons and call links. Call links are also appearing on landing pages, such as mobile websites or directory apps like YP, Yelp, Foursquare, etc. However, social apps are by far the fastest growing category driving calls to businesses. Native advertising and in-feed ad units have become very big in social media. These native ad units are now becoming increasingly dynamic, with buttons to engage with businesses, and to allow businesses to interact with their local customers. Facebook has integrated call buttons within the news feed. Twitter has experimented with the click-to-call button, so customers can call advertisers directly from promoted tweets. An Explosion of Phone Calls The smartphone combines a search and discovery device with a phone and native dialer and voice input. It s a natural handoff to go from mobile search to a phone call. Humans have a biological imperative to communicate verbally. And despite the digital era s focus on automation and ecommerce, the complexity of many transactions means voice communication is still very important. This is especially true in high-consideration and complex purchases such 8

9 as autos, financial services or healthcare, where the complexity drives consumers to want to talk to someone. The value of leads in these high-ticket categories is therefore very high, and ripe for monetization. The increasing prominence of click-to-call buttons will cause phone calls to businesses to explode. BIA/Kelsey predicts the number of calls driven to businesses from all mobile content formats will grow from 93 billion this year to 160 billion by This includes both mobile app and mobile web. Search will be the clear winner in terms of call volume, thanks to its intent-based nature. Social media is the smallest but fastest growing format for generating calls. This growth will mostly come at the expense of traditional display banners. Channel, Track, Analyze, Optimize These calls are happening already. All of these mobile usage trends are sending massive volumes of calls to businesses. The key thing for marketers is to be able to capture those incoming calls so they can make more informed decisions based on improved data and a better sense of ROI. That means driving calls, channeling them to the right places and then tracking and analyzing them. Doing this enables marketers to optimize their campaigns on an ongoing basis via their call analytics software platforms. 9

10 Trends Driving Marketing Spend Marketing departments are in a better position than ever to put the technology they need in place: 1. Marketers today are becoming more self-sufficient and less reliant upon IT departments for purchasing and managing software platforms. This has removed a large barrier to adoption of marketing technologies, empowering marketers to be more effective. According to Gartner analyst Laura McLellan: By 2017, CMOs will spend more on IT than their counterpart CIOs. 2. The rise of cloud-based software platforms and staff service models allows marketers to manage and run these platforms without the need for lots of technical knowledge, capital investment and on-site servers. 10

11 Call Tracking Features and Benefits Businesses already receive billions of phone calls. These are generated by a variety of marketing channels including radio, direct mail, billboards, PPC, SEO etc. If you can track where these calls are coming from, you will have a clearer idea of which marketing channels are working the best. Google Analytics doesn t report on phone calls out of the box and customers commonly misreport where they heard about your business. The following call tracking features help you understand and serve your customers better. DNI: With dynamic number insertion (DNI), the phone number on your website will automatically switch depending on which marketing channel a caller has come through. Whether it is online, notifications, or offline marketing channels, each has a unique phone number. Visitor timelines enable you to view where people go on your site before and after a call. Say someone lands on your service landing page, then visits your about page, and then your contact page, before calling you can see that entire multichannel journey. Call scheduling allows you to route calls based on your business hours so you can set a time to send calls to voic or maybe to an answering service after business hours. 11

12 SimulCall allows allows multiple destination numbers to ring simultaneously when someone dials your tracking number, lowering the chances of missed calls to your business. Attribution reports allow you to quickly see how all your marketing channels work together towards driving conversions in one graph. 12

13 Scenario 1 You Are Not Currently Tracking Calls (You Should Be) Set up call tracking for your own business, or your clients businesses sign up with a call tracking provider and install a call tracking/dni script. You can use a plugin via WordPress, easily add it to your page, or have your developer install it in a short amount of time, just like with Google Analytics. Once installed, you can manage everything through the software. Local SEO Name, address and phone number (NAP) consistency is one of the most important ranking factors for local SEO. It is important that you have the same information across all your local business listings, such as Yelp, Google My Business, Bing, Angie s List, YP.com, etc. If you want to keep your old phone number, you can transfer or port it to a call tracking provider. This enables you to take advantage of the benefits of call tracking, while still maintaining NAP consistency. Mobile Click-to-Call This enables customers to call directly from an ad, enabling them to skip the business landing page. Many small businesses are still not optimized for a mobile browsing / converting experience. Getting someone on the phone right away is much better for that customer than clicking an ad, filling in a form and then waiting for a call back, which may or may not come. Call tracking enables you to record calls, which keeps everyone 13

14 accountable, and enables you to improve your sales and customer service processes. The centralized dashboard enables you to produce detailed reports on where calls are coming from and which marketing channels are working best. Offline Marketing Channels These include billboards, company vehicles, direct mail, radio, TV, and yard signs. Assigning different numbers to each channel enables you to see how much of your call volume each one generates. Some businesses can get as much as 10% of their calls through the number on their company vehicles. Knowing the call breakdowns for each channel helps inform how much of your marketing budget should be allocated to each channel in future. 14

15 Scenario 2 You are Currently Tracking Some Calls But Can t See Which Keywords are Driving Calls from PPC If you are investing even a few hundred dollars per month, knowing which keywords are driving calls will pay for itself within weeks. Case Study: At least 50% of a client s leads from PPC were phone calls versus web forms. In some campaigns, and in some locations, the number of calls skewed all the way up to 70%. The client knew how many calls they were getting, but not what was driving those calls. Without keyword level tracking you can t import lead data to AdWords. It is impossible to optimize AdWords on click-through rate alone. The solution was to implement keyword-level call tracking, enabling them to integrate lead data into AdWords, and optimize by time of day, day of the week, mobile vs desktop and so on, to see exactly what was driving that 50% or greater of leads coming in over the phone. Set Up Keyword Tracking: Integrate your call analytics software with Google AdWords and Google Analytics. Create keyword-tracking pools for each channel you would like to track. These are groups of phone numbers that rotate based on the active user that visits your site from PPC. For example, one user might come in through a door repair keyword ad, while another comes in through a window repair keyword ad. These two customers will get a separate phone number, which will all be tracked behind the scenes back into AdWords. 15

16 Case Study Results: Cost Per Lead was three times lower without the additional optimization For many businesses, phone calls are worth a lot more than people filling in a form. You are not as likely to lose them to competitors if they can reach you right away on the phone. You don t have to worry about people not calling them back and you are able to assign a higher value to phone calls and then further optimize based on those new lead values that we can then report on. Reporting dashboards, notifications and whisper messages provide additional value to clients, continually reinforcing the message that their marketing efforts are working. 16

17 Conclusion Businesses are great at tracking their online marketing channels. As smartphone usage continues to skyrocket and drive up the number of calls to business, it is increasingly easy and imperative for them to do the same with incoming phone traffic. Integrated with AdWords, calls can be channeled, tracked, analyzed and optimized like any other digital channel. Drilling down and tracking the value of individual keywords is easy to do and provides extremely valuable insight into where you should be focusing your marketing efforts. About CallRail CallRail provides call analytics to more than 30,000 companies and marketing agencies in North America. CallRail s intuitive software helps data-driven marketers optimize the performance of their advertising campaigns, increase sales effectiveness, and improve customer retention. Learn more at About Digital Marketing Depot Digital Marketing Depot is a resource center for digital marketing strategies and tactics. We feature hosted white papers and E-Books, original research, and webcasts on digital marketing topics. Digital Marketing Depot is a division of Third Door Media, publisher of Search Engine Land and Marketing Land, and producer of the MarTech Conference and the conference series Search Marketing Expo. Visit us at 17