Resource Center - Industry Articles
CallTrack® and the Evolution of the Call Tracking Industry
January 18 2011
Direct-response advertisers needed an efficient way to track and compare the number of leads and cost-per-lead for the various sources and forms of marketing they use. Print and electronic media needed an objective way to prove their value to their advertisers. In 1994, when CallSource invented call tracking as a service, both got their wish.
Of course, those willing to do the manual labor and wait for the end of the month for results were always able to source their telephone calls by analyzing their phone bills. Tracking multiple sources multiplied the number of telephone bills to review.
CallTrack also utilizes multiple telephone numbers, both local and toll free numbers to track telephone response. Call tracking with an automated, online system has numerous advantages. Not only are CallTrack results recorded and reported automatically, regardless of the number of campaigns to be tracked, the reports are available in real-time via the Internet and can be programmed for scheduled delivery via email.
CallTrack has been employed by hundreds of thousands of businesses throughout the US and Canada and tracks over a million ads on any given day. Call tracking is sometimes referred to as "telephone tracking," "metered lines," "call metrics," "call measurement," or "call monitoring."
It is important to realize that not every call that is counted by CallTrack, or by any call tracking system, is an actual "lead." For one thing, multiple calls from a single caller are still only a single lead. Moreover, even though a call tracking number is intended only for use by a prospective customer, some tracked calls are actually customer service calls from existing clients, personal calls, misdialed calls, vendor calls, or calls from job seekers.
CallTrack and some of the call tracking systems that followed CallTrack automatically compensate for repeat calls. CallTrack adds a unique feature known as LeadScore®, which reviews every call to separate prospect calls from non-prospect calls. This makes CallTrack the only call tracking system we know of that can give an accurate view of cost-per-lead by source plus true sales and/or appointment closing ratios.
Tracking marketing calls is not all that call tracking software can do. The CallTrack system and other call tracking services can also digitally record calls. Why record sales calls? Call recording allows review of actual sales interactions with prospective clients for sales training and other telephone skill training. CallTrack automatically notifies callers that their calls may be recorded. The CallTrack system allows recorded calls to be reviewed via Internet.
In the years since CallTrack invented what is now the call tracking industry, the Internet has become increasingly important to marketers. Studies have shown that except in the case of ecommerce transactions, the typical telephone prospect for a major purchase is much closer to a buying decision than the average information-gatherer on the Web. Still, it is important to be able to track a telephone call back to the Website, Search Engine, or Keyword that brought them to the online source of the toll free telephone number they called. This is where dynamic number insertion (often called dynamic number replacement) comes into play.
CallTrack is able to track calls from a Web source using this method. With dynamic number insertion, a different toll-free number is displayed to each visitor, based on the path he or she used to arrive at the site of the online advertisement. Different call tracking systems use different algorithms to display and track such Web-generated telephone traffic.
CallTrack and other call tracking services all provide telephone traffic metrics. Measuring telephone response is important. Uniquely, CallTrack also separates true prospect calls from other types of calls to the call tracking toll-free or local numbers. This adds a unique and valuable level of accuracy to CallTrack reporting.
Beyond any reporting, CallTrack integrates with a variety of services designed to not only track telephone traffic, but to measure and improve conversion of telephone leads to appointments and sales. Using the call recording feature of CallTrack, Telephone Performance Analysissm reviews call recordings and measures the skills of each call-handler with a convenient report card. Where this aspect of the CallTrack system finds skill gaps, appropriate training can be recommended and even delivered via a custom learning management system.
When you combine call tracking, call recording, lead scoring, telephone performance analysis, and targeted training, you have a system that impacts on a company's marketing, operations, sales, and management. That is the evolution of CallTrack and the future of the call tracking industry.
