Call tracking software for digital marketing has been around for years. At this point, any company that has seriously put forth paid search or paid marketing efforts has most likely dabbled in these services, or has fully adopted a call tracking partner.
At WTM Digital, we have gone through 3 or 4 call tracking solutions since our birth in 2008. We have also used many other platforms that our partner clients have already had in place prior to joining our roster.
Among these platforms (but not limited to) are:
However, we have found our favorite call tracking platform for digital marketing efforts to be CallRail. If you are considering a new call tracking platform, or just researching options, we outline below why we suggest giving CallRail a try. To clarify, this is in no way, shape, or form a paid promotion for CallRail. We just like their platform that much!
Pricing
Pricing is the main feature that can make (or break) certain vendors as an option. For most small and medium sized businesses (SMBs), it does not make sense to have a call tracking plan which costs hundreds or thousands of dollars per month.
These more expensive options do come with extra features which may be useful to your company. However, SMBs rarely have an intricate phone support line to warrant such an added cost.
CallRail’s pricing starts at $49/month, which will cover most of your needs. WTM Digital has a higher level of subscription, but purely because we like the added features of analytics and form tracking.
Free Trials are a common theme with any vendor you choose, so make sure you utilize the 14-day trial window and explore the options that come with your plan. You can then decide if the features in the more expensive plans are worth the added monthly fee (trust us, they probably are).
Ease of Use
As an agency, we need a vendor that allows for easy navigation, intuitive user experience, and implementation options for non code-minded individuals. CallRail fulfills all of these needs and more.
The only semi-technical setup requirement is to place a snippet of JavaScript onto every page of your website, before the closing <body> tag. This can easily be accomplished through Google Tag Manager. Clear and concise instructions are provided for set up.
Once this code is placed, the rest of the setup for dynamic number insertion and tracking is easy enough to be done by someone with zero coding experience.
Integrations
Aside from the attractive pricing, the Integration options from CallRail are WTM Digital’s favorite feature. With a few clicks, you can link your marketing technology to CallRail. The screenshot included in this section is just a few of the built-in, native linking options. These integrations will correctly pump data back and forth between the platforms, ensuring that your data is being tracked.
Nearly all of the most widely used marketing platforms link to CallRail:
- SalesForce
- HubSpot
- Google Analytics
- Google Ads / Microsoft Ads / Facebook ads
- Marketo
- WordPress
- Etc., etc.
Voice-to-Text Translation
This is a helpful feature which essentially translates the call recording’s spoken word to text. While there may be some errors or inconsistencies with the translation, the ideas in the conversation are appropriately translated well enough to get an idea of what happened on the call without listening to the actual recording.
Why is this helpful? Because you can set “trigger” words which will flag the phone call if certain words are spoken. An example of words which may indicate a “good” customer call took place are:
- “Credit card”
- “Payment”
- “Address”
- “Email”
If these words are spoken (among others), then it is likely a sale or “conversion” took place on the phone call. The same is true for “bad” trigger words such as:
- “The wrong number”
- “Complaint”
- “Refund”
Form Tracking for Lead Generation
For non-ecommerce, lead-generation websites, CallRail’s “Form Submission Tracking” feature may be your new favorite tool.
With the more expensive plan, CallRail gives you the ability to capture actual lead data like name, email, phone, company, and then trace the data back to its originating source. In addition, you can see the customer journey, i.e. what pages they viewed on your site before submitting the lead.
There are certainly other tools and ways you can do this without CallRail. Although, it is nice to consolidate technology and use the built-in feature within one platform to track leads and phone calls.
Ready to Give CallRail a Try?
We have named just a few of our favorite CallRail features. We realize that CallRail may not be the right fit for all companies, and it may not meet all of your needs. However, we believe it is worth signing up for the free trial to discover the features & limitations for yourself.
If you are interested in getting assistance with setting up call tracking or just have general questions about how call tracking assists your online marketing efforts, please feel free to get in touch with WTM Digital.
We are a digital marketing company in Lancaster, PA that offers a different approach to online advertising.