Even in the age of ever-increasing digital marketing, consumers are still talking the talk. The number of people calling businesses after seeing a mobile ad or listing has increased. How do you capture this traffic and, more importantly, track it?
Companies, regardless of industry, are investing in marketing themselves—this comes as no surprise. In fact, marketers were forecasted to spend $540 billion globally on advertising last year as reported by the CMO Council. And the way they’re marketing their products or services isn’t shocking either, given the explosive rise in digital marketing and how it’s blanketed us as a society, changing so many facets of our lives. What may surprise you is what your audience is doing with the information they’re receiving about your offerings—online and offline. They are picking up the phone and actually calling you.
The Center for Media Research recently reported that according to the 2016 Call Intelligence Index, the shift from offline to digital marketing spend, combined with the ubiquity of mobile, is increasing calls to businesses at an upward clip. The annual index analyzed more than 58 million calls across 40 industries, providing insight into the important role of the phone call in today’s multichannel customer journey.
This year’s Index found that, in 2015, digital channels drove 92% of calls to businesses, up from 84% in 2014. Additionally, the report finds more customer calls come from mobile search than from any other channel (responsible for 48% of overall call volume). Features like the convenient click-to-call button couldn’t make it easier for customers to call businesses on mobile and no doubt play a part in this rising behavior.
Also of interest, 63% of people complete a purchase offline after searching online. Marketers are responding to this trend by capturing call data by implementing call tracking. By adding the simple, seamless and inexpensive feature of dynamic call tracking to your company’s website, both you and your marketing partners can better source where leads are originating and provide a more accurate ROI analysis. After all, that’s what it’s all about, right? A call tracking system provides varying phone numbers that a customer would find, depending on how they accessed your website (i.e., digital efforts like organic search, direct, display, paid search, social, etc., and don’t neglect traditional tactics, usually categorized as “branding” as well). Every time someone calls your call tracking number, the call is captured so you can track call events alongside your existing marketing metrics for measurement and analysis.
Bottom line: If you’re going to spend, why not track?
