CHEAP, EFFECTIVE CALL CONVERSION TRACKING
One of the biggest headaches for website analysts is tracking customers across a site who then decide to make contact over the telephone.
A method which we have used for tracking the referral sources for telephone calls is described below.
Okay, so everybody knows that converting visitors into leads and sales is the number one goal of online marketing. Everyone needs to convert visitors in some form or another, be it making a sale, getting a newsletter signup, or simply attracting visitors to read your blog and subscribe to your RSS feed.
Tracking these desired onsite actions is a standard feature of most web analytics programmes, and the information they can provide is a great way of analysing your various marketing efforts.
One action which is notoriously difficult to track is when visitors call you. Customers eh? Don’t they know that filling in a contact form allows you to easily track where they came from, their path through the site, etc...? They probably don’t know, and even if they did they probably wouldn’t care!
Anyway, back to the subject in hand, how do we track these phone calls using our favourite analytics programmes?
The method I have successfully implemented for a client is probably not new, it does not capture all phone call information, it does require signing up to a third party Internet phone service (of which I have no affiliation with what so ever!), however it is relatively cheap to run and the data provided is invaluable to our marketing efforts.
THE SOLUTION
We have setup an account with the guys at Voipfone who offer a range of VOIP services, the only offering we are interested in at this time is their ‘Call Me Back’ service. This allows you to put a button on your website which people can click on, enter their telephone number and receive a free instant call back.
You need to set it up with your business landline number (or VOIP number) , then when a visitor to your website enters their telephone number the ‘Call Me Back’ service instantly rings your preset phone number, when you pick it up in the office the Voipfone service begins to call back the number which was entered online, connecting you together seamlessly.
You have to have some credit on your account to pay for the call charges but it’s not very expensive really, one of our clients uses less than £40 credit per month which is small fry compared to his landline and mobile phone bills.
So, do we just add tracking code to the web button? Well no, it’s not that simple (never is, is it?).
Adding tracking code to the initial click of the web call back button would track people who may click but decide not to call you, not a great solution.
How about adding it to the form button which is submitted to Voipfone for processing? Well, the form interface you are provided with is actually a Voipfone web page which you are unable to add code into.
Bit of a problem, however with a little investigating it is more than possible to create some code to achieve what we need!
It turns out that all that is required to start the Call Back process is a standard form submitted to a Voipfone url with some data encoded. Easy peasy!
All that is now required is the construction of a page on your website with a standard html form that posts data to the correct Voipfone url with the required parameters which can easily be found by inspecting the source code of the page provided to you by the Voipfone Call Me Back service. (These parameters will definitely change based on who is providing your call back service.)
Once you have that working, you can add some javascript tracking code to the button click, and then set it up as a goal for your analytics program to track!
In no time at all we can now track the source of all phone calls made using this web interface.
A nice added bonus is that offering customers a free way to call you should also help you in regards to conversion rates as well! A real win - win scenario!
Of course, the limitation is that people who choose to call you directly from their own phone will totally bypass this method and will be untrackable, but you can’t have everything!
DEVELOPING IT FURTHER
With a little scripting knowledge and some time it wouldn’t be that difficult to record these telephone numbers in a database, which you can then sell to spammers’r’us! Only kidding, you’d never want to do that (no seriously, do not do that!).
What this could be good for though is to have a record of calls made, therefore if people fill in the form outside of your working hours, you can simply look up all call records attempted outside of hours and call them back.
Also, for people browsing your site outside normal operating hours you could ask for their phone number and a ‘best’ time slot for you to call them back in.
The possibilities are endless, well not endless, but there are certainly other developments you could build into this tool.
Remember, I used Voipfone as they were familiar to me through other dealings, there will be many other similar providers out there, and the basic principles of this solution remain the same, even if the technicalities change slightly from provider to provider.
ARTICLE DETAILS
Author: Darren Atkinson
Date Published: 15th August, 2008