Where Did that Phone Call Come From?

Historically, one of the trickiest things about online marketing has been figuring out which advertising campaigns are responsible for your leads… especially if the leads come in via a phone call.

Granted, tracking leads from online campaigns is easier than with off-line campaigns. But even in the digital marketing world, getting the answer to the question: “Where did that phone call come from?” is challenging.

Sometimes It’s a Combination

Sometimes the path a potential customer takes to a phone call isn’t a direct one, and therefore isn’t easy to track. As an illustration, here’s a compelling statistic: A recent Forrester Research survey revealed that for every dollar we spend online, we spend five dollars researching online and then purchasing it offline (via a phone call or an in-store visit).

So, there’s a good chance that the person who gives your business a call started their relationship with you online. But which phone calls? How many? And which of your online campaigns are responsible for them?

Anything that sheds light on the source of these “combination leads” helps you know where to most effectively spend your advertising dollars.

For Google AdWords: A New Solution

Google’s New Feature Makes Call Conversions Easier to Track

For some time, Google has had limited call-tracking features for their search ads. With these older features, you can track visitors who call you directly from a search ad. (Using “click to call” or special phone numbers that only display on that ad).

But, of course, visitors don’t always call directly from your ad. They may see your ad, go to your website to learn more … and then call you – using the number displayed on your site.

In the past, to track this type of call, you’ve needed to sign up with one of the vendors who provide sophisticated call analytics such as CallRail or BionicClick.

But in August, Google Adwords dished up some serious competition by providing free website call conversion tracking.

While this is a product for Google ads only, it’s a serious step in the right direction, and promises to be extremely effective in ROI tracking – for the vast number of businesses who focus on Google Adwords for their advertising.

How It Works

With the help of a small script added to your web page, Google dynamically generates a unique phone number on your website. The phone number it creates will vary according to the ad the visitor comes from.

After the script is installed, you’ll know which phone call leads are coming from your Adwords campaigns … even if they visited your website before they made the call. Not only that, you’ll know which specific keywords and ads the new leads came from.

With this detailed ROI information at your disposal, you can make your Google Adwords campaigns more effective and get better results than ever before – and it’s FREE.

Why is Google offering this service at no charge? Data is the new currency (see our post: The Dark Side of the Internet of Everything: Data is Power), and this promises to gives Google a tremendous amount of new data about off-line behavior that can be predicted by online behavior.

Bottom Line: If your business is using Google Adwords to gain traffic and sales, take advantage of Google’s hunger for data and increase your ROI by utilizing their new Website Call Conversion feature.