We’ve blogged on this subject before, but now comes Melissa Burdon with a similar message on FutureNow …which basically is:
If you’re tracking only clicks as conversions, and not phone calls, you could be missing a significant portion of the ROI that’s due to your online marketing.
B2Bs tend to assume the universality of their usual model of present ad – click – fulfill offer – nurture for months. But some prospects are in more of a hurry, and just might place an order – or at least take your 60-day free trial – if… they can get a few questions answered right then. Others may need reassurance from a real live person that they’re generally on a track that applies to their business before taking an action that they realize will commit them to receiving an endless stream of emails.
Tracking those calls is easier today than it ever was before; you can…
- set the phone call URL as a goal in Google Analytics
- track which traffic source generated the call by using unique phone numbers for your different marketing communications channels
- use a solution such as Ifbyphone’s Call Tracking Screencast and Service, which integrates with Google Analytics (view a demo)
- use Dynamic Number Insertion (DNI) technology, which allows you to track the specific search engine, web page or keyword that generated an inbound phone call (for a mini-tutorial on this, see Bill Dinan’s piece for Search Engine Land)
Whichever method you use, don’t disregard the conversions that come by phone. You could discover not only that they account for a significant fraction of your total conversions, but also that they just might be on average more likely to close and/or quicker to close than those that come via the conventional click route.
