When you’re setting up call tracking for the first time, knowing how to tell what’s working and what’s not is the cornerstone for success. Without knowing what call metrics to pay attention to, you might as well not track calls at all because you’ll have no data on the dials that are coming in.
Start keeping an eye on the following factors to see where you’re getting results and how you can improve on your website’s ability to generate leads.
Volume
Simply put, the number of calls you’re getting every hour, day, week, and month matter if your business depends on inbound calls. After you’ve had call tracking set up for a while you’ll start to figure out what a normal volume of calls looks like for you as well as when the calls are coming. Even though it’s obvious, measuring call volume will allow you to plan for the right number of reps to answer phones during the days and times the most calls come in.
Length
Length is meant to be an indication of call quality: the longer the call, the better the lead. This isn’t always necessarily true, but by consistently studying the length of calls that end up converting you’ll begin to notice how long successful calls usually are. You’ll also be able to see which ads, keywords, landing pages, and content are generating the highest number of calls that are also of a length that correlates with conversions based on past data.
Time and Place
Knowing the times and places that your most high-converting calls are coming from allows you to optimize your campaigns. This can go beyond simply running ads targeted for when and where your specific audience is most active. If you’re getting calls from a place you don’t do business in or at an inconvenient time, you can adjust your PPC campaigns to exclude those locations and hours.
Calls Per Number
This is probably one of the most interesting metrics because if you have unique call tracking phone numbers for each landing page and ad, you’ll soon discover which pieces of your online marketing strategy motivate people to pick up the phone most often. If you can figure out the common elements that these pages and ads have, you’ll be able to design more like them and capitalize on their success.
Repeat or First time Caller
Knowing whether a caller has dialed your company up before or if this is their first time is also useful because someone that’s called more than once could be a hotter lead. That’s exciting!
But on the other hand, a high number of repeat callers can be a sign that a strategy change is in order if they’re confused people looking for a different service or a division of your company outside of sales, like HR or customer service.
Conversions
Conversions are the mother of all metrics. Tracking when a call leads to a goal – such as an appointment with a sales rep or even a purchase – will provide all the information you need to straightforwardly calculate ROI on your PPC campaigns and other digital marketing techniques that led to that first call. Additionally, keeping an eye on conversions can shed light on the length of your sales cycle so that you can adjust strategies accordingly.
Paying attention to all of these metrics will give you a comprehensive picture of how your campaigns are performing. Access to data like this makes setting up call tracking a worthwhile task because it empowers you to refine your strategy, get to know your customers better, and drive higher ROI from all of your online marketing activities.