How to Track Campaign Conversions Using Dynamic Call Tracking

What if I were to tell you that a large amount of search engine marketers are undercounting conversions from their paid advertising campaigns by not properly tracking phone calls?

Call tracking using a dynamic phone number can prove and improve how your marketing drives calls and sales from every channel. There is the capability to track phone calls back to specific ads, keyword searches, web pages, social media, digital ads, mobile, and more. Effective call tracking can lower your cost per acquisition and give you a better grasp on your true conversion performance.

What is a dynamic trackable number?

Dynamic number insertion allows for you to swap phone numbers dynamically depending on the source of traffic.

How Exactly Does It Work?

By installing one line of Javascript on every page of your website and trying different numbers to specific sources, when a visitor arrives on your website, the JavaScript detects the source and swaps the phone number automatically so you can track what sources are sending you phone calls.

I am a visual learner so I am going to share an example of how a rental community in Ohio implemented a dynamic trackable phone number, which led to a dramatic increase in their conversion rate percentage.

Real Life Example

The Grand at Polaris apartment complex in Columbus, Ohio was not happy with the amount of conversions their paid advertising campaign generated. They were sending paid traffic to the homepage of their website before our agency took over their account.

After analyzing their data, I agreed that there was room for improvement.

They were tracking conversions in two different ways:

  • If someone filled out a contact form on their website
  • If someone made a phone call directly from their Google advertisement

I knew that for an apartment community, if someone were to visit their website, they would do a lot of research before making a purchasing decision. This often times would relate in a phone call coming into the leasing office.

By implementing dynamic call tracking and a landing page for this specific PPC campaign, Grand at Polaris more than quadrupled their conversion rate percentage. By properly tracking calls and creating a stellar landing page strategy, they were able to dramatically increase the amount of conversions (case study further along in article).

Optimization

If you have not yet implemented a dynamic trackable number, you are likely salivating that there is an opportunity to report a much higher amount of conversions from your paid advertising campaigns.

It is not just the apartment industry that will benefit from a campaign like this. We have seen an uptick across all industries, such as point of purchase displays for NUTIS Press with a 35% uptick in conversions along with a local tennis club.

Your PPC campaigns can actually benefit to a much greater extent if you were to implement a dynamic call tracking number on a specific landing page. Moz was able to increase sales by 52% by just utilizing landing page optimization. We have seen a dramatic increase in optimization from sending our paid traffic to landing pages.

Align a landing page with your PPC efforts along with a dynamic trackable number and you will be shocked with the amount of conversions you can start to generate and report on moving forward.

How to implement a dynamic trackable phone number on a campaign specific landing page:

1. Find a service like CallSource or CallRail that will provide you with the capability to utilize a dynamic trackable number

  • Google recently announced a feature called website call conversions but this does not provide you with the opportunity to listen to the recorded calls or view the caller ID, which can truly show whether or not someone converted

2. Install a one-line snippet of JavaScript on your landing page immediately before the </body>tag on every page of your website

3. Place the phone number on your landing in a prominent position that can be easily viewed and clicked on for a direct mobile call

4. Create different numbers to track visitors from specific sources (for example, Google AdWords, Bing, Facebook)

Once you have followed the four steps referenced above, you will be able to gauge the entire call data-taking place from each specific campaign. Imagine being able to hear a conversation coming from a Google PPC campaign and determine whether or not that person made a purchase?

Case Study

Before the landing page and dynamic trackable numbers were implanted in February, Grand at Polaris had a PPC budget of a $456.31 in January. They were driving paid traffic to the homepage when they were managing the PPC campaign themselves. Below is the average data from January before implementing a landing page and dynamic trackable phone numbers.

Before | January Monthly PPC Data:

  • Advertising Spend: $456.31
  • Clicks: 224
  • Conversions: 3
  • Conversion Rate Percentage:  1.36%

In February, after we changed their strategy and implemented the dynamic trackable phone along with the landing page, we saw a huge surge in the conversion rate percentage.

After | February Monthly PPC Data:

  • Advertising Spend: $451.94
  • Clicks: 257
  • Conversions: 17
  • Conversion Rate Percentage: 6.60%

Several Notes About This Test

  • In January, before call tracking was implemented, phone conversions were not being tracked on the Grand at Polaris’ website (a mistake by many PPC marketers). There could have been more conversions taking place but since dynamic phone number was not on the homepage, this conversion data was not represented in the reporting.
  • Comparing January to February is not exactly an apple vs. apple comparison.  There is some seasonality that could have impacted the results. According to the client though, rentals in January and February are relatively similar so this should not have played a huge impact.
  • Display remarketing was in place once the landing page and dynamic number were implemented. There were conversions that took place from remarketing and this was not represented in the data referenced above.

Conclusion

It is safe to assume that many online marketers are not properly tracking phone calls and properly attributing them to the correct advertising source.

By implementing a solid strategy for dynamic call tracking and incorporating this tactic onto your landing page, there is the potential to drastically increase your conversions.

Jason Parks

Jason Parks

Jason Parks is the President and Founder of The Media Captain and Cleveland Marketing King, two digital marketing and development agencies based in Ohio. He's a VIP Contributor for Entrepreneur.com and has been featured in the New York Times, Yahoo News and Search Engine Watch on digital-marketing topics. Jason's agencies have helped hundreds of businesses increase their online exposure.

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