There is a fine line between a successful marketing campaign and one that irritates customers.
Indeed, 2022 Twilio research suggests that most customers feel that they receive too many messages from companies they have shared their contact details with.
Such results remind marketing teams of just how critical it is to test, learn from, and optimize marketing campaigns. Call tracking metrics are an essential part of doing so.
What Are Call Tracking Metrics?
Call tracking metrics enable contact centers to quantify how many calls they receive due to a particular marketing campaign. They also share more insights into the nature of these calls.
For example, particular call tracking metrics analyze the sentiment of customers calling in, the business they generate, and the efficiency of contact center teams in dealing with these callers.
Consider the following scenario: a restaurant runs a campaign for a pop-up dinner, targeting nearby customers. The ad appears across social media, Google, and various other platforms, along with the restaurant’s phone number.
When interested customers call the number, they route through the business phone system. However, there is no way to know which ad the customer saw and, therefore, which campaign attracted them.
Call tracking metrics aim to address this disconnect. They track the call back to its source of marketing attribution so that businesses can quantify the success of individual campaigns.
For large organizations running scores of campaigns simultaneously that aim to attract interest through the voice channel, call tracking metrics are an indispensable tool.
Which Call Tracking Metrics Should You Measure?
Call tracking solutions allow users to measure several metrics, including the following examples.
Call Volumes
Measuring how marketing campaigns impact contact volumes enables marketing teams to track the interest that each campaign generates.
Ticket tagging is essential to such a strategy, a process that helpdesk tools will automate to ensure accuracy when measuring the resultant call volumes.
Users can segment demand for each campaign to track engagement, spot trends, and replicate best practices.
However, it is critical to ensure this correlates with a healthy conversion rate. If not, businesses may waste resources thanks to the additional costs of hiring more staff.
Conversion Rate for Calls
Conversion rates highlight how many callers convert into paying customers. A high conversion rate indicates a positive return on investment (ROI) from the marketing campaign.
Also, the metric helps companies understand which campaigns drive the most conversions, perform below average, or create confusion.
Finally, if the conversion rate is low, it may highlight that contact center agents have not received the required amount of training to sufficiently handle these calls.
First-Time Callers
This call tracking metric reveals the number of first-time callers who respond to a marketing campaign for the first time, highlighting how the ad supplements customer acquisition.
Indeed, first-time callers are essential leads that a business obtains through inbound marketing campaigns. Call tracking metrics help measure and map out these leads.
Call Duration Per Campaign
In the case of inbound marketing campaigns, longer conversations often lead to greater engagement and eventual conversions.
For instance, if a person speaks at length with a restaurant about a pop-up dinner, it indicates that they have an interest and may reserve a table. As such, call duration per campaign often reflects engagement rates.
Also, it helps to properly quantify the costs relating to each campaign, alongside the call volumes metrics.
Caller Location
Call tracking software isolates the locations from which most calls originate. Such a metric helps businesses pinpoint key demographic details of customers.
Caller location is also a vital tracking metric for fine-tuning future campaigns to target the residents of a particular region better.
Why Do Call Tracking Metrics Matter?
Here are five reasons why call tracking metrics are crucial for organizations.
1. Measure the Returns from Marketing Campaigns
They help quantify the ROI from digital marketing spend, as businesses can more accurately measure conversions and the contact center costs that a campaign creates.
2. Decide the Best Channels for Investment
These metrics pinpoint the best channels for investment in terms of traffic volume and conversion rates. If a business wants to enter a new region, the metrics will also show region-specific success rates.
3. Understand Customer Segments and Demographics
Call tracking insights form the basis for further analysis of customer segments, demographics, and behavior. Indeed, they help link customer behaviors to specific marketing decisions and campaigns. When are customers most likely to call? What type of media attracts the most callers? Call tracking metrics to answer these questions.
4. Build Profitable Websites
For web-based campaigns, where there are multiple product-related landing pages – geared for different types of prospects – call tracking metrics often prove particularly helpful. The landing page will carry a contact form and phone number, and call tracking metrics will identify which campaign initiated the call. Based on this info, marketing teams can build more profitable websites.
5. Turn the Contact Center Into a Profit Center
Many businesses still perceive contact centers and support functions as cost centers, primarily because they do not generate quantifiable value like sales or marketing. Call tracking metrics assign measurable value to the effort that contact center agents put in, mapping the precise number of leads and conversions that a contact center processes.
How to Measure The Metrics
Most businesses monitor call tracking metrics through marketing tools that identify the attribution source for each contact.
Organizations can set up call tracking metrics when configuring website landing pages using Google Analytics. They can also leverage purpose-built software tools like CallTrackingMetrics, CallRail, Phonexa, infinity Call Tracking, CallSource, ResponseTap, etc.
These tools offer a graphical user interface (GUI) where users can link their phone systems to marketing campaign information and enable visibility.
Helpdesk software, which enables automated ticket tagging, also tracks the call volumes associated with various campaigns.
Get to grips with other critical contact center metrics by reading our article: 40 Contact Center KPIs to Start Tracking Now
