What Is Phone Call Tracking and Monitoring Software?

Phone Call Tracking, also known as “call tracking” in the marketing world, is a methodology of tracking incoming lead calls and attributing the calls to specific marketing campaigns. Put simply, call tracking can help you determine what marketing initiative led to a specific phone call.

Why Is Phone Call Tracking and Monitoring Important

Call tracking is important as it can help you understand what marketing campaigns are leading to phone calls to your business. This is especially important if you are spending money on either traditional or online marketing initiatives.

Call tracking and monitoring is not cheap. If your marketing budget is very small and you are only doing one marketing initiative, you might not actually need call tracking immediately. In other words, don’t spend all your budget on tracking and very little on the actual advertising campaigns themselves!

That said, there are two main areas where call tracking can be exceptionally helpful.

Track Lead Attribution and Provide Marketing Analytics

Using call tracking, you can successfully track each inbound call to your business and see exactly what marketing channel led to the call. This is exceptionally important since it will allow you to understand whether that great lead came in via your Google Ads PPC (Pay-Per-Click) campaign, SEO, or your Facebook ads. Call tracking can even be used to track whether phone calls came as a result of a user clicking to your website from AI platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Gemini.

Additionally, at an aggregate level, you will see which marketing channels are supplying the highest number of phone calls. Then, you can compare this data to your marketing spend for that same channel to identify the best use of your marketing budget.

Understanding which marketing channels created the most quality phone calls can help you decide which marketing campaigns are worth investing more in and which should be reduced or eliminated altogether.

Improve Sales and Support Quality

Additionally, most phone call tracking systems have a feature which allows call recording and even call transcription. For instance, our favorite call tracking tool, WhatConverts, includes HIPAA-compliant call recording at no additional cost, and also has optional features for call transcription and AI based call analysis.

The call recording and transcription feature allows management to easily review calls for quality concerns. For example, let’s say you see quite a few leads coming in from your Google Ads campaign, but they are not converting into paying customers. Instead of assuming the lead quality is poor, you can analyze the call recordings and transcriptions to see if your sales and support teams are properly handling the calls.

Monitoring call recordings allow for opportunities to improve both your sales and customer support teams. Implementing changes based upon audited call quality can convert more leads into paying customers, as well as improve your customer support.

How Does Phone Call Tracking Work

Call tracking can get a bit tricky and technical to understand, but thankfully there is a simple dynamic call tracking solution.

Can I Use Google Ads Built-In Call Tracking?

Some advertising platforms will include a “call tracking feature.” For example, Google Ads has a dynamic number insertion (DNI) feature where, when implemented correctly, it will be able to track which phone calls came off your Google Ads.

However, Google Ads' call tracking system does not help you understand what leads came from your other marketing channels like social media marketing, SEO, your Google Business Profile, etc. For example, Facebook has a different tracking pixel that can be used to associate calls back with Facebook campaigns.

In essence, if you use each individual advertising platform’s tracking mechanism, you are left stringing system upon system together to piece together incomplete data on call tracking.

Instead, to get an accurate and holistic picture of your marketing channels, it’s much easier to use robust call tracking software that can integrate all the marketing channels within one system.

How to Get Call Tracking Numbers

It’s not advisable or efficient to buy your own tracking numbers from your phone provider. Manually developing call reporting on how the numbers are being used can be a nightmare.

Instead, it’s far simpler to use robust call tracking software which allows you to get tracking numbers as needed based upon the number of campaigns you are running.

Using Robust Call Tracking Software

Getting setup on call tracking software can be simple or fairly complex. Difficulty depends on how your website is built, the extent of your offline campaigns, and which call tracking system you select. Once you select your call tracking software, you will have configuration options that create a dynamic number pool (set of numbers) that will be dynamically inserted on your website. This pool of numbers is used to analyze and determine the marketing source of the phone call.

The average number of visitors you get to your website per day will determine how many tracking numbers you need in your tracking pool.

Depending on what call tracking platform you use, they may also have functionalities for tracking form submissions, booking appointments, text messages (SMS), chats, and even e-commerce transactions.

PPC Campaign Call Tracking Integration

Using phone call tracking on PPC ads for platforms like Google Ads, Facebook/Instagram, and LinkedIn is a powerful way to analyze the conversion rate of a campaign. Most of those systems will allow you to even embed clickable phone numbers directly within the ads. This necessitates a separate call tracking number be configured for that specific ad campaign.

Additionally, advanced phone call tracking can allow you to see exactly which ad and even which targeted keyword led to the phone call! This allows you both to see how your overall campaign is doing but also which ads and keywords are driving the highest number of phone call leads.

Google Business Profile Call Tracking

Local company’s Google Business Profiles are what populates the local map pack within search engine result pages (SERPs), as well as Google Maps. If you’ve used Google to find a local business like a plumber or a restaurant, you may have clicked their phone number directly from the Google Business Profile listing. Advanced call tracking software can track those phone calls directly from the Google Business Profile (GBP) listing!

Offline Call Tracking

Additionally, you can implement additional tracking numbers to track calls that occur off of your website. For example, offline call tracking can track calls from a direct mail postcard, billboard ad, Yelp listing, or even a paid sponsorship on another industry-related website.

All of those calls from offline sources can be tracked and aggregated into your online tracking dashboard.

How to Get Started with Phone Call Tracking Software

We have tested and investigated quite a few different systems over the years including native phone call tracking systems that are advertising platform specific, like Google Ads. Additionally, we’ve evaluated robust all-in-one tracking systems like CallTrackingMetrics, CallRail, and WhatConverts which can track conversions across all advertising platforms.

By far, our top recommendation for phone call tracking is WhatConverts. We use it here at Igniting Business and for our clients. While not the cheapest, WhatConverts is the most robust holistic tracking software that can natively track phone calls, form submissions, online chats, e-commerce transactions, and more. Additionally, their setup process is very streamlined, and their support is exceptionally responsive.

You can get a free trial of WhatConverts by visiting their website.

Call Tracking Frequently Asked Questions

The following are common questions we hear from our clients and readers about how business call tracking works.

Can I track different numbers across different locations?

Call tracking platforms like WhatConverts are made for tracking calls across different locations and branches. You can even sign select your call tracking numbers and specify different area codes. Whether you have 1 location or 27 locations, call tracking can work just as well with the right tool.

Does call tracking hurt SEO?

If implemented correctly, call tracking will not hurt SEO. However, you do have to be careful. For instance, there is a particular way to add a call tracking number to your Google Business Profile while still retaining your primary number on the listing. If you are evaluating your call tracking software options, be sure to ask how their system avoids causing SEO conflicts.

Which platforms integrate best with Google Ads and Analytics?

WhatConverts, CallRail, and CallTrackingMetrics all integrate with Google Ads and Google Analytics. As far as features and implementation steps, you'll want to review their documentation. Here at Igniting Business, we use WhatConverts with Google Ads and Google Analytics seamlessly.

How does call tracking integrate with a CRM?

Depending on the call tracking services used and your CRM, you may be able to integrate the call tracking software and your CRM. Most call tracking services will list which third-party CRMs they integrate with as well as provide documentation on setting up the integration.

Are there call tracking tools with advanced AI-powered features?

Most call tracking tools have advanced AI-powered features. AI features might include call intelligence, sentiment analysis, lead quality scoring, and more. That said, the most powerful AI features are typically incorporated into higher tier call tracking packages.

What is the difference between call tracking and conversation intelligence?

Call tracking and conversation intelligence serve different, but complementary, functions in the realm of business analytics. Call tracking focuses on monitoring and tracking phone calls, providing data on call duration, call sources, and other call-related metrics.

Conversation intelligence goes beyond simply tracking calls. It analyzes call recordings to provide insights on the content of conversations, including keywords, sentiment analysis, and identifying successful sales techniques. Conversation intelligence offers a deeper understanding of the actual conversations taking place, ultimately helping businesses improve their sales strategies and customer interactions.

What hidden fees should I look out for in call tracking software?

Most call tracking systems have a base price plus charge for "usage." For example, the usage of a small single-location business might have less than 50 calls per month, whereas a multi-location company might have hundreds. To accommodate for this, the call tracking providers will typically charge for usage which is typically a factor of total minutes used, number of tracking phone numbers needed, etc. Some systems will come with a certain amount of usage included, and you only pay for overages.

You must read the pricing structure in-depth to understand your total costs. Then, make sure you keep an eye on your monthly invoices to look for any usage overages.

Which call tracking software is most affordable for small businesses?

Keep in mind that call tracking (or broader conversion tracking) is a bit of a premium to start with. As such, I definitely would make sure you are choosing the call tracking software with the best features for your specific use case. This includes easy integrations with your existing systems. As such, I would encourage you to look beyond the price and focus on value.

At Igniting Business, our favorite small business call tracking system is WhatConverts. It's what we use for our own conversion tracking, as well what recommend to our small business clients.

Which call tracking tool is best for agencies and marketers?

We hands down recommend WhatConverts as the best call tracking tool for agencies and marketers. They have multiple account types, make client setup easy, and they support full conversion tracking. If you want to supply robust conversion tracking to your clients, you must track text messages, form submissions, bookings, and transactions, all of which WhatConverts can track natively.

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