Tracking Calls for your PPC Campaigns

Tony Fazzini - January 10, 2013

For service based businesses, Pay Per Click Advertising is one of the most cost effective forms of marketing.  However, it is very difficult to track certain functions.  Most businesses are forced to focus on web forms with CRM integration to track their leads and follow up with potential customers.  When leads come in from paid search, they can track them from an analytics platform and goal setup.  An additional tool that is often not utilized is call tracking.

Call tracking is not a new concept which helps to differentiate your search campaigns from your other website traffic.  Typically, this works by placing a snippet of code onto the website that can alter the phone number when someone enters the site through a paid advertisement.  The new phone number is forwarded to an existing phone of the business’s choosing (no additional lines to manage).

When someone calls in through the call tracking number, there is a lot of data that can be provided for analysis.  Some of these features would include phone number of caller, call duration, if phone was answered, time of call, and location of caller (if available).

This data can then be used to analyze the effectiveness of paid search efforts and the quality of the phone calls that come in through different marketing campaigns.

Additionally, a company could have multiple call tracking numbers based on the different search engine campaigns they run (Ex: separate tracking numbers for Google and Bing).  This would allow you to see which engine delivers more calls and which drives more quality traffic to the website.

Most agencies that offer paid search management offer call tracking options.  Inquire with your account manager to find out the details of the programs they provide.