How do you make informed marketing decisions without a full picture of your analytics? You don’t. You might make a decision, but it won’t always be the best choice for your contractor business.
So, how can you paint a clear picture of your PPC campaigns? The first step is to track every call that comes from your digital advertising efforts. If you’re relying on phone calls to book appointments and close sales, you need to know exactly where your leads are coming from to calculate your true return on ad spend.
But I’m already tracking clicks, you’re thinking. Why should I bother tracking phone calls? If you’re only tracking clicks through your PPC platform, you’re creating a major blindspot between the time a searcher clicks on your ad and the time your sales rep answers the phone. Call tracking fills that blindspot, giving you access to key insights that will boost your bottom line.
After all, you’ve poured blood, sweat, and tears into building a standout website, crushing the competition with PPC ads, and growing your business. Without the right data, you’ll never know which campaigns are driving the best results—and you’ll never be able to make the most of your advertising budget.
What are you waiting for? Here’s how to track calls from digital advertising so you can stop draining hard-earned marketing dollars on ineffective ad campaigns.
Call tracking is a marketing tool that provides in-depth information about the people who call your business, including where they initially found your phone number. Our clients use call tracking software to link inbound calls with specific ad campaigns. With the right data, they can track calls down to the exact campaign, ad, and even keyword.
Your first thought might be that nobody’s picking up the phone to call businesses anymore. Sure, more of your prospects might be texting, emailing, and Facebook messaging your company than ever before, but they still want to talk to a human being. According to 2015 research from Salesforce, 92 percent of all customer interactions happen over the phone.
Call tracking data is incredibly valuable for your paid search strategy, and it should be a no-brainer for any contractor business. When customers want to hire a service company, they want answers to questions about pricing, availability, and service—and they’re going to call your business to learn more.
Call tracking assigns a tracking number to a business phone line. When an interested lead calls a tracking number, their call is automatically forwarded to your business line.
The assigned number is linked to call tracking technology that tracks numerous metrics, including:
When call tracking software hit the market, a single number was assigned to a single campaign. For example, business owners used one tracking number to track phone calls from billboards, while they used another number to track calls from their website. Sounds simple enough, right?
Of course, call tracking technology has evolved over the years, providing detailed insights into individual ads and keywords. Today, dynamic number pools allow advertisers to use as many numbers as needed to cover each ad and/or keyword—all without flushing valuable marketing dollars down the drain. Dynamic number insertion assigns a unique phone number to each online source, and then displays that phone number to visitors who arrive at your website via that source.
Installing call tracking software is easy. All you need to do is specify call parameters on your call tracking platform (e.g., show local phone numbers to local visitors) and install a JavaScript snippet on your website. The hard part is driving results—and your call tracking data is only helpful if you’re putting it into action.
If you’re not leveraging call tracking data to gain a competitive edge, you’re leaving money on the table. Call tracking solutions record every call so you can gain insights into your leads. This way, you can figure out how many calls are general business inquiries and how many callers actually convert into paying customers.
When you listen to every call, categorize every call, and track data on the call transcript, location, date, and time, you can pinpoint areas of improvement for your sales and marketing teams—and that can make all the difference in your bottom line. Start tracking your referrals, missed calls, and calls from different ad campaigns. It’s time-consuming, but our clients tell us that it’s well worth the effort.
At the same time, call tracking provides valuable data for sales and marketing teams. With information about each caller’s name, location, and marketing source, your teams can work together to close more sales, optimize ad campaigns, and maximize productivity.
Call tracking technology can make a huge difference in your bottom line. It’s the tool you need to make the most of your ad spend—but it’s only one piece of the lead tracking puzzle.
To drive the best results for your business, avoid relying on one source to track leads. Instead, combine call tracking solutions with other lead tracking tools, like a customer relationship management (CRM) tool, to get a complete view of your lead sources.
The right CRM solution can give you the data and insights you need to make informed marketing decisions for your business. We’ve worked with many contractor businesses, from HVAC experts to landscapers, and we know how important it is for our clients to have dependable, reliable access to their analytics.
It’s time to stop wasting hours behind a desk scrolling through spreadsheets. CRM lets you spend more time in the field, working with clients, and growing your business by delivering relevant data. Your CRM can help you stay on top of new leads, track their movement throughout the sales funnel, and identify gaps in your sales process so you can stay ahead of the pack and keep your appointment book full.
Call tracking data fills in the gaps of your lead generation strategy so you can get the most bang out of every advertising dollar. When you know exactly where your conversions originate, you can accurately measure your ROI and streamline your marketing efforts.
Still mastering the basics of PPC? Looking to take your ad campaigns to the next level? We’re here to help you grow your contractor business with powerful lead generation strategies. Contact us today to start tracking leads the right way.
