Integrating call-tracking into Google Analytics

3 Steps to make the case for better call-tracking

I get it. You’re an online marketer. Equipped with the best there is to offer in web analytics, you save the day for client after client, letting them know what drives visitors to their websites. Clients want to know if visitors actually read the content on their websites? Done. Businesses enquiring on what sites visitors go to after leaving their website? You got it covered.

But what happens when these visitors you thought you knew so well visit your clients website then decide to pick up the phone? Even with a powerful tool like Google Analytics, you still need to be tracking phone calls.

I know… I know, this isn’t 1876, and you aren’t Alexander Graham Bell. You’re a digital savvy marketing pro, why should you worry your clients with something as old school as telephone calls?

Why you should be tracking phone calls

• A recent study conducted by comScore on behalf of Google, found that 63% of website visitors complete their purchases offline following their search activity.
• Another Google study, this one conducted by Ipsos Research, found that 70% of mobile searchers call a business directly from search results.

Without tracking calls, any data on how visitors converted over the phone after interacting with your client’s business online is lost. That’s why integrating call tracking with Google Analytics is a great option for marketers. If it sounds complicated, don’t worry  it isn’t, you’re just 3 easy steps away from never missing out on valuable data again!

Three steps to integrating your call tracking with Google Analytics

Step 1: Integrate your Google Analytics Account with a Call Tracking Service

Call tracking services, in a nutshell, provide you with unique phone numbers that allow you to track what campaigns and advertisements are driving calls to your company. When you use call tracking online, you can find out if your website drives phone calls, and get insight into caller behaviour.

To get the most out of call tracking, you’ll need to find a service that’s easy to use, and easy to integrate with Google Analytics. CallRail call tracking and analytics, gives marketers the ability to track calls from organic search and PPC ad campaigns, plus it’s easy to integrate with your existing Classic and Universal Google Analytics accounts.

Step 2: Reap the benefits of using Google Analytics with Call Tracking

Once you integrate call tracking, you can personalize your Google Analytics experience and get deeper insight into website visitor behaviour:

• Set up goals in Google Analytics for calls and track them as conversions.
• See phone call conversions along with other conversions your tracking, such as online appointment forms, newsletter signups, and CRM data.
• Tailor reports to a client or businesses specific needs and create custom segments to analyze the activities of callers.
• View a caller’s website activity before and after they call a business.
• Create customized reports using information from all of the sources you’d like to track, including calls, event data, and multiple other sources across multiple devices.

Step 3: Help yourself and your clients by showing the value of advertising

I understand your hesitation. It sounds good, but there’s a new marketing tool born everyday  what makes this one different?

Just ask Darren Carter, Principal at NYC SEM and CallRail client. Like many online marketers, he spends his day helping clients gain leads and make sales through optimization of their online campaigns. In his role, he constantly uses Google Analytics to help his clients better understand return on ad spend, and he couldn’t do it without call tracking.

'The main thing that using Google Analytics with CallRail exposes for my clients is having an important conversion that’s measurable within analytics that can show the value of their advertising.

Once I installed call tracking, I could see our clients were underestimating the value of the advertising we were doing for them. For example, we have a company that sells a high-end product, one of their best customers may spend $30,000 after developing a relationship with them, but they need to be introduced to the brand first through advertising, then they pick up the phone.

People are calling before making large purchases. Even if they initially used search they may go back to the site and complete a sale, but you’d never know that the sale was related to the advertising without call tracking.' Darren Carter, Principal at NYC SEM

Don’t you want to close the gaps for your customers, and show them the full picture behind their online advertising? Integrating call tracking makes that easy. Calls are an extremely important piece of the online marketing puzzle, so do yourself and your clients a favour, make the most of your marketing and get more out of Google Analytics by integrating call tracking.

Thanks to Erica Campbell for sharing her thoughts and opinions in this blog post. Erica Campbell is the Marketing Coordinator for CallRail, a call tracking platform that brings enterprise-level call analytics to businesses and agencies, making it easy to track which marketing sources and keywords make your phone ring. Connect with Erica on Google+ .