How to Setup Inbound Call Tracking on Your Website

Some businesses have yet to take advantage of call tracking for their marketing campaigns. Because of this, they may not understand what led a customer to call them in the first place and have to ask, “How did you hear about us?” in order to find out.

Call tracking can help your business track the source of these phone calls from your website or advertising campaigns all the way through to a sale, so you have a better view of the ROI of marketing campaigns. It is also relatively simple to set up, so there is no reason not to get started today. In this article, we’ll show you the steps involved.

Table of Contents

1. Generate Phone Numbers For Tracking
2. Forward Your New Numbers
3. Add the Tracking Numbers to Your Ads and Campaigns
4. Enjoy a Better View of Your Marketing Campaigns

1. Generate Phone Numbers For Tracking

The first step is to visit 800.com and generate a unique vanity phone number for each of your marketing campaigns. You can use the vanity phone number generator there to find numbers that reflect products you sell, deals you offer, or your company’s name. A memorable phone number will stick in your customers’ minds even after they forget your ad. If you have existing phone numbers, you can also port them over to 800.com.

How many numbers should you get? It depends on how granular you want your tracking to be. You will want to track your website, AdWords, Facebook, and LinkedIn separately, and if you want even more specifics, you can use a unique phone number for each ad group or campaign.

2. Forward Your New Numbers

The next step is to set up call forwarding for your new phone numbers. With an 800.com number, you can forward these calls to any number at any time, even mobile phone numbers, to ensure that the customer experience is seamless and all callers get routed to an agent that can help them. These numbers come with a complete virtual phone system that includes not only call tracking but also call forwarding.

These are the ways you can forward these numbers:

• Standard: This will forward phone calls directly to a mobile or land-based phone line.
• Simultaneous: This will forward incoming calls to multiple lines at once to make sure the call gets answered.
• Sequential: This will forward calls to multiple lines in order of priority or availability.
• Voicemail: These calls will go directly to voicemail.

Other things you can do now that you have new phone numbers and a virtual phone system you can manage from anywhere are:

• Forward calls to other employees when one is on leave.
• Divert tracking numbers to a retail location during business hours and to a call center after hours.
• Forward to a mobile phone after hours and to a landline when staff is in the office.

3. Add the Tracking Numbers to Your Ads and Campaigns

Once you have your new tracking numbers and have forwarded calls from those numbers to those best suited to answer them, it is time to assign the numbers to specific marketing channels. Add the corresponding numbers to your website, AdWords ads, Facebook ads, and LinkedIn ads. Now when customers call from those numbers, you can track them from the ad source all the way through a phone conversation.

4. Enjoy a Better View of Your Marketing Campaigns

Call tracking gives you a full view of your user’s journey, even if part of that journey started somewhere else. It will allow you to combine your customers’ digital data (website visits, previous transactions, and ad exposure) with their call data (area code, time of day, and length of call) to determine which of your advertising and marketing campaigns are worth pursuing and which you are losing money on.

Now that you see how easy it is to get a holistic view of your marketing efforts and fine-tune your campaigns, why wait? Get started with call tracking by signing up for your 800.com account today.