• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to content
  • Skip to footer
  • sales@callsource.com
  • Schedule a Demo
  • (833) 968-7768
  • Search Icon - Click to Search
CallSource

CallSource

Performance Management for Sales and Marketing

  • Automotive
  • Hearing
    • CallSource Hearing
      We want to help you grow your practice
    • Hearing Call Management
      Marketing Attribution | Call Volume | Opportunity Alerts | Call Analysis
    • Hearing Performance Management
      Phone Insights | Employee Performance | Call Coaching
    • Hearing Reputation Management
      Respond, Now! | Review Platform
    • Hearing Digital Management
      Complete Attribution Platform l Dynamic Number Insertion l Competitive Insight
  • Home Services
    • CallSource Home Services
      We want to help you grow your business
    • Home Services Call Management
      Marketing Attribution l Call Volume l Opportunity Alerts l Call Analysis
    • Home Services Performance Management
      Phone Insights l Employee Performance l Call Coaching
    • Home Services Reputation Management
      Respond, Now! l Review Platform
    • Home Services Digital Management
      Complete Attribution Platform | Dynamic Number Insertion | Competitive Insight
  • Pest Control
    • CallSource Pest Control Solutions
      We work with top providers
  • Industries
    • Other Industry Solutions
    • Dental
    • Call Management


      Track Inbound Calls l Discover New & Missed Opportunities l Industry Benchmark

    • Performance Management


      Score & Analyze Phone Skills l Call Coaching l Empower Employees

    • Reputation Management


      Aggregate Reviews l Improve Online Reputation l Respond, Now!

    • Digital Management


      Complete Attribution Platform l Dynamic Number Insertion l Competitive Insight

  • Vanity
  • Blog
    • Podcast
    • Events
    • FAQs
    • Knowledge Center
  • Company
    • About Us
    • Careers
    • The Company We Keep
    • Contact Us
  • Login
    • CS Reviews
    • EveryLead
    • Reporting

Call Management

How to Calculate Expected Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) for Contractual Businesses: A Marketer’s Guide

March 5, 2019 by Kevin Dieny

Learning the Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) formula will help marketers predict the future net profit of every customer in a contractual business and take action to improve the value of high-value customers across the business.

The formula to calculate the expected customer lifetime value for your contractual business as a marketer is:

Formula to calculate the expected customer lifetime value

Where EV(t) is the net income or Profit, S(t) is the survival probability or the retention rate, d is the discount rate, and t is the time period interval that you are using. Put another way, the definitional expression for expected customer lifetime value E(CLV) is:

Definitional expression for expected customer lifetime value E(CLV)

Got it? Now good luck!

…Just kidding.

You probably need a bit more background to understand this equation and its underlying principles behind the formula so that you aren’t just plugging in numbers without understanding all of the moving parts.

Want a simple plug-and-play excel template for expected customer lifetime value calculation? Get it here!

Why should I care about calculating the expected customer lifetime value for my business’s customers?

In order to promote your business with marketing campaigns, you must spend resources such as time, effort, and capital to attract customers. You want to ensure that all of these resources spent aren’t for nothing. Wouldn’t it be great to have a crystal ball to see the future for every customer and their potential value, so you know which customers are worth your time and effort by the amount they may spend on your products or services?

While that kind of magical crystal ball doesn’t exist, determining a customer’s expected lifetime value comes in a close second for a similar usefulness. Yet, the calculation of the E(CLV) alone is not the end, since customer value is finite – no business relationship lasts forever. Simply giving every customer a potential value is not enough, since you may or may not gain the benefit of this customer depending on a number of determining factors.

The day you acquire a new customer, their potential value starts decreasing. You can lose potential value at any point if the relationship is burned too quickly, the partnership soured, or the customer leaves you to go to a competitor. While a customer might look very profitable at first glance with really high potential value, it is not always so easy to capture that potential. It’s also not likely that you will ever capture all the potential value of any single customer in the lifetime you have a business relationship with them.

So to answer the question – you should care about calculating the expected lifetime value of your business’s customers because you could be leaving money on the table by not properly reaching customers that have high potential value, and throwing money away by spending frivolous resources on customers with low potential value.

Looking at each individual customer in the marketplace in this potential value fashion is generally called customer centricity. The way you track, measure, and apply customer-centric strategies is a function of using the expected customer lifetime value E(CLV).

Focusing on the Heterogeneous (Truly Unique) Segments of Your Customers

Not all customers have equal potential value let alone the actual value they pay you at the first purchase. Focusing on User Experience (UX), personalization, and dynamic marketing campaigns create a common misconception that you are working with customer centricity. While those put the customer at the center of marketing – it is the function of incorporating the potential value through E(CLV) that truly defines customer centricity.

The focus of customer centricity should begin in your customer relationship management platform (CRM) with the segmenting of your customer information. If you’ve ever sorted coins into the pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, etc. and counted them up, this is an example of what you will aim to do with the customers in your database (whose potential value is a lot like the different values of coins). You are going to separate your customers by potential value E(CLV) so that your entire company can better understand the different customer centric tiers your company works with.

Segmenting your customers

The segments (like the coins) should be heterogeneous so that every segment is different enough from each other (all dimes together, all pennies together, etc.). Within each group, you might expect to see a lot of aspects of the customers in common other than just similar expected customer lifetime ranges.

The simplest way to get started with segmenting your customers is to group them by three categories: high value (highest potential value), moderate value (average potential value), and low value (lowest potential value). The decision points (what will separate your segments) are highly subjective to you and your business, so pick the initial break points but expect to adjust them in the future.

(Tip: You might also want to segment the customers further, so the groups are even more distinct from each other. See example in the table below)

Here are some additional combinations alongside value tiers that are targetable with advertising:

High-value Web Visitors Moderate-value Interests Low-value Industry
High-value Email Clickers Moderate-value Genders Low-value Age Groups
High-value Asset Downloaders Moderate-value Income Level Low-value Geographic Area
High-value In-market for X Moderate-value Job Title Low-value Products Purchased

After you have your segments, what do you see? Looking at your high potential value customers, do you see accounts that:

  • Have been loyal?
  • Tend to interact with your communications?
  • Come to view you as a partnership?
  • Own more than one of your products or services?
  • Maximize the use of your products or services?
  • Tend to refer your business to others?

You could look at each tier of customers this way and start asking these initial questions. The enlightening part of this journey is that once you start to ask the right questions, the solutions, processes, and marketing campaigns start to reveal themselves. Every business has the constraints of resources and capabilities, but once you see what composes your individual customers, you can efficiently act to capture additional value.

How to get started in order to calculate the expected customer lifetime value

Whether you are a marketer or in some other position, you should not be a lone wolf in attempting to make your company more customer-centric. It’s important that you manage your expectations and realize that you cannot do it alone forever – you need buy-in from the top and from the stakeholders in your organization because customer centricity is not localized to marketing or finance alone.

With that said, here are the basic components you will need to be able to calculate the E(CLV):

  • Your business must be contractual (subscription based), or you must be able to tie purchases to individual customers. If you are not able to, while it’s still possible to figure out their E(CLV), it’s far more theoretical and I will not be tackling that in this article (but feel free to reach out if you want guidance).
  • You must have and use a CRM (like Salesforce or similar) and;
    • The CRM must store customers uniquely (little to no duplication).
    • The CRM must contain the status of the customer’s relationship (Ex: current customer, cancelled customer, or prospective customer) along with dates of those status changes.
    • The CRM (or you must have a way to match it to customers from another system) must contain the revenues and expenditures (think Net Profit or Net Cash Flow) of each of your current and cancelled customers broken down by your desired time periods (so not a single number in aggregate).
    • The heterogeneous segments in your CRM must be as unique and distinct from each other as possible.
    • Finally, the CRM must contain a large enough sample of the status type of cancelled/discontinued customers for you to get a healthy prediction since it will be based on this.
  • You must have access to all of the information above and meet with finance infrequently to obtain a useful discount rate.
  • Lastly, you must have a way to calculate it. Start with Excel, and maybe ask someone for help (like the author of this article!) if you need it.

When calculating the expected customer lifetime value, you are using the present and historical customer data in your CRM to make a calculated prediction about the future and potential value of your customer segments. You are using the cancelled customers in your segments as the baselines for the survival (retention) rates in each segment. This alone is why segments that are not unique enough from each other will abstract the final calculation of E(CLV).

(Tip: To find out if your segments are not unique enough, try segmenting further with data you have in your CRM by experimenting with different combinations such as demographics or behavioral engagements that you have tracked.)

Customers you have newly acquired may also skew results because they have not been customers long enough to give you quality data. For companies that are brand new, it’s more important that you set yourself up for calculating this in the future than it will be to get an accurate calculation in the first year.

Setting up your tables in Excel to calculate the expected customer lifetime value

As long as you are within the row and column limits of your Excel you can calculate the expected customer lifetime value and graph the results. The following example table is how you should organize the data out of your CRM:

Segment Time (t) Profit(EV(t)) Survival/Retention S(t) Discount rate (d) E(CLV)
High 1 $$$$ 0.## 0.## $$
Med 1 $$$ 0.## 0.## $$
Low 1 $$ 0.## 0.## $$

On the top you want to label your columns (I’ve added formulaic representations to help you). On the left are your dimensions with segments listed and the corresponding time periods. You want to make sure that for each segment you have all the periods aligned with that segment. The Profit is the net cash flow for that period of time (Revenues – Expenditures – Taxes). Remember that this value is subjective to your organization and could be computed differently by company. Finally, add your survival probability (retention rate) and the discount rate (you should get this from finance).

Enter the E(CLV) formula that mentioned at the beginning into the final column and make sure that it pulls from the cells in its own row. Once the formulas run, you should see your E(CLV) amounts by segment and time period.

How do I calculate the customer survival probability (retention rate)?

The survival probability or the retention rate is how likely that segment is to survive into the next period. To get the survival probability (retention rate) for each period you will look at the historical information you have and use the following calculations based on the data in your CRM:

Calculating the retention rate of your Client Customers

You can only do this calculation if you have the statuses of who is a prospective customer, a current client, and a cancelled customer.

As you can see, the major decider of a high or low survival rate (retention rate) is the amount of cancelled customers you had in each time period. From this metric alone you might be able to notice seasonal patterns or buying trends depending on how aggregated your time period is.

The life of finance circles around annual periods that are broken up by quarters (Q1, Q2, Q3, and Q4), but could also turn into months (1, 2, 3, …12) or weeks (1, 2, 3, 4, …52). The time period is sensitive to how quality your data is and the volume of how much data you have per segment. The more aggregate you go (annual, quarters), the more context you lose. Yet, the finer you go (days, weeks), the more quality data you need to have. Again, this is one of those areas that is subjective to your business.

I’ve calculated E(CLV) for my segments, now what?

First things first, give yourself a pat on the back, share your success here on the blog or let us know on social media that you’ve accomplished this, because we’d like to applaud your efforts. In terms of businesses who are capable of the feat of calculating customer value – you rank in the top globally.

If you have not already, graph your results of expected lifetime value.

(Tip: I recommend a waterfall chart to start as it gives you a nice little representation of the values over your time periods).

I created simulated information on my own so that I could share the results and talk about the value in obtaining this data. Below you will find the simulation results that I ran for two segments (Cohort A, and Cohort B).

Cohort A is akin to a high-value customer segment. Cohort B is similar to that of a low-value customer segment (These two are sort of like dividing your customer value database into two).
The shocking difference is just how much better the high-value customers are than the low-value customers.

Difference in high-value customer segment - Cohort A

Difference in low-value customer segment - Cohort B

I was shocked to see that in this simulation, the Cohort A (high-value segment) is light years better than the Cohort B (low-value segment). In fact, the low-value segment is actually losing money over time and unable to make up for the initial acquisition cost.

Combined, the customers are net profit $133K per year (12 t periods) – so on the surface, this simulation wouldn’t appear that bad. However, when we segment the simulation into two groups, we see that the Cohort A carries all the weight with $180k per year in profits and Cohort B is dragging all of the profits down. What would you do if you found out this was happening in your customers?

Interested in our excel template for the calculation? Fill out this form so we can send you the simple way of figuring this out!

Now, not so fast… do not fall into the trap of wanting to remove all of the bad customers you have that are unprofitable until you properly examine their contributions.

A good example is when a grocery store finds out that all of its high-value customers are those that buy soda, chips, and diapers. Taking this insight, it decides to turn the entire store into offering only soda, chips, and diapers. The sales plummet, and customers leave in droves. But wait – isn’t that what the best customers wanted? So why didn’t that strategy work?

Customer preferences, loyalties, and behaviors

It does not work because even though customers may have preferences, loyalties, and behaviors that you can measure, they also want the opportunity to do more. Customers may not have been buying products outside of soda, chips, and diapers at high frequency, but they were still buying them. They weren’t coming solely for the soda, chips, and diapers – even if those purchases are most common.

Your least valuable customers might be that way because of your past decisions, alignment, and even the products or services you sell. Instead of sending all your low-value customers away, you should think about ways to reorganize their products, services, and offerings so that you can make them more profitable to your valuable customer. The lesson in your actual data can tell you a lot about customer behavior, customer insights, and how you go to market.

Next Steps?

The next step you should take is to try to go more granular with your segments if possible. You should also try your first experiments to see if you can affect the segments directly.

Finally, I would recommend that you take your expected customer lifetime value and apply backwards to all of the activities in your organization that directly and clearly impact the customer. You might find (for example) that your phone calls (with rich customer data and highly personal communication) have a high potential value across all your customers. If you knew that a phone call was associated with tons of customer value, that would be a sign that your phone is not only important but possibly vital (high correlation) to the success of creating value from your current and future customers.

(Tip: CallSource is the phone call attribution pro so ask us for help if you need it.)

Conclusions

Customers are all created with potential value that you can realize by segmenting your CRM by expected customer lifetime value. Expected customer lifetime value is a financial calculation that forecasts the potential value of a customer based on the present and historical data you have of current and cancelled customers.

Using the formula, you can predict the future value of a customer discounted to the present period. Businesses that focus on customer-centricity are aligned from top to bottom in using the expected customer lifetime value across their entire organization. The day a customer is created starts the clock on your ability to capture that value over time with targeted marketing and sales strategies.

Customer centricity is not a short-term or “get rich quick” proposition and requires your company to take accountability for the CRM and customer data. By using potential customer value, you can efficiently use your company’s valuable resources and capabilities to generate higher returns.

References:

  1. 2018 by Peter S. Fader and Sarah E. Toms, The Customer Centricity Playbook, Wharton University Press
  2. 2007, Estimating CLV using aggregated data: The Tuscan Lifestyles case revisited, Fader P.S., Hardie B.G.S., Jerath K., Journal of Interactive Marketing, 21 (3), pp. 55-71.

Filed Under: Digital Management Tagged With: Call Management, Digital Management

How to Get Your Own Custom Vanity Phone Number

February 25, 2019 by Cassie Ciopryna 1 Comment

Looking to acquire a vanity number for your business but unsure how to start the process?

Look no further!

Vanity numbers, also referred to as custom phone numbers, are easy-to-remember, toll-free numbers. Custom vanity numbers start with an 8XX prefix. Currently, the available prefixes to choose from are:

  • 800
  • 888
  • 877
  • 866
  • 855
  • 844
  • 833

Following its prefix, custom phone numbers will either spell a word, phrase, or have a repeating number frequency.

Types of Vanity Numbers

If you are looking to lease a custom phone number for your business, it is easy to do so by choosing a vanity number provider (like CallSource) to aid in your custom phone number needs.

How can you get a custom phone number? All you have to do is follow the simple steps below to acquire your vanity phone number as soon as possible.

Step 1: Find Your Perfect Custom Vanity Phone Number

First, you will need to brainstorm and decide on a few number options that you want.

Do you want a specific word or phrase? Do you have a few word options? Or would you rather have a repeater number?

Decide what you will be searching for beforehand so that you do not get overwhelmed when it comes time to choose your number.

Having a hard time deciding on your perfect vanity phone number?
Check out some hot numbers that are available for lease right now.

Step 2: Make sure your custom phone number has the right amount of digits

Count out the number of letters/numbers that are in the word or phrase you’d like in your custom vanity number.

You will need a minimum of 7 digits (after the prefix) in your number – so make sure that the word/phrase you choose is at least 7 characters long. If it is not, you must be willing to have a combination of numbers with your word.

Ex: Using the word “DENTIST” works perfectly because 888-DENTIST has 7 digits, so no extra numbers are needed. However, if you want the word “TOOTH,” your number may look more like 877-55-TOOTH.

Words or phrases over 7 characters also work in a vanity number. However, it is best to try not to exceed 10 digits as it may be harder to remember. Also, keep in mind that whatever numbers are dialed after the 7th number do not matter in the actual typing of the digits into a phone keypad.

Step 3: Coverage options

What kind of coverage will you need for your vanity number? You want potential customers to be able to reach you from this number.

Statewide Coverage

Are you a local business with mostly local customers? If so, statewide coverage may be fine for you to have a more local vanity phone number.

Multi-State & Regional Coverage

Perhaps your business is in a tri-state area, and although most customers are still fairly local, you may want to get combined coverage for all of the surrounding states. Multi-state coverage is an option for you.

Nationwide Coverage

Lastly, you may want to get nationwide coverage for your custom phone number. Nationwide covers secures that no one else can have the same vanity number as you.

Nationwide coverage is also a preferable option for businesses with multiple locations across the country or business located in areas that have many transplants.

Coverage is based off of a phone number’s area code – so if many people who live in your area have moved from their home-state and kept their original phone number, your vanity number wouldn’t be accessible to them if you had only state coverage and they have an out-of-state phone number. This is important to keep in mind when choosing the coverage option that you need for your custom vanity phone number.

Canada Coverage

CallSource leases vanity numbers for Canadian business as well, so make sure to note this when searching for phone number availability in your area.

Step 4: Search available vanity phone number options in the vanity phone number tool

Search for the custom phone number that you desire!

CallSource’s vanity search tool is easy to use.

Vanity Search Tool

Simply search for the keywords that you choose along with any other filters you may want to apply.

Do you care about the placement of the word, such as if numbers may come before or after the keyword? Do you have a specific prefix preference?

Once you search for some numbers you are interested in, you can view their coverage availability. Make your own custom list to request a quote on the number(s) you are interested in. It’s as simple as that!

Step 5: Lease your custom vanity phone number

Speak to a representative to get more details regarding pricing and availability. Some numbers may be available only in specific states or areas, while others are available nationwide.

Determine which is best for your business and then move forward in achieving the perfect vanity number that you need.

Step 6: Publish your vanity number

Once you have acquired a personalized phone number, you want to make sure to publish it in order to start receiving calls!

Vanity numbers work great for branding purposes and for ads that can benefit from easy-to-remember numbers or phrases. Some perfect options for campaigns to use your new custom vanity phone number in are for a radio ad, or in television or a podcast.

Wherever you choose to use your vanity phone number, make sure that you use it for its best ROI opportunity, and to track your calls with call tracking, which is included on all CallSource vanity numbers.

Get a Vanity Phone Number Today

Now that you know how easy it is, it is time to acquire a vanity number for your business.

Click here to have someone reach out to you, or contact a representative today at 855-GOT-VANITY to learn more.

Drive new customers to your business with an
easy-to-remember phone number.

Choose a Vanity Number.

I want to talk to someone available vanity numbers for my business.

Filed Under: CallTrack Tagged With: Call Management

What is a Dynamic Number Insertion Script and How Do I Use It?

February 21, 2019 by Cassie Ciopryna

TL;DR (Too Long; Didn’t Read) Version Here

Dynamic Number Insertion, also known as DNI, is a call tracking solution used by businesses that seamlessly ties offline and online attribution.

DNI enables businesses to attribute phone calls generated from PPC ads, SEO campaigns, retargeted ads, and more to measure success for each digital marketing channel. This call tracking technology aids in multi-channel and multi-touch marketing attribution to show the complete customer journey online to offline.

We have a podcast episode dedicated to explaining how dynamic number insertion (DNI) works for online call tracking purposes.

Basically, DNI is an accurate way to track consumers who call your business after discovering your number online. Dynamic numbers allow marketers to discover all the actions a user took before calling. With DNI, you can see which ads, keywords, and online content tie into generating inbound calls and should get credit in marketing attribution. For marketers that are unsure whether or not they are comfortable using call tracking because of SEO, DNI is the perfect solution.

How does dynamic number insertion work?

When a lead comes to your website, DNI will display a unique phone number to each user. When called, this toll-free number routes to the main line of your choosing (usually your main business line).

Dynamic number insertion uses a pool of toll-free numbers in the background. The volume of numbers provided is based on your website volume to ensure that each user or source gets assigned its own specific number to be tracked from digital to offline conversion. A phone number from the pool will display after being dynamically switched based on the user or source. This ensures that each user or source gets its own unique number.

Some number pools (like ours) are managed automatically, so you do not need to know ahead of time how many visitors you are expecting. Most other solutions require you to provision the amount of numbers in your pool ahead of time.

Dynamic Number Insertion Capabilities

Depending on what type of DNI solution you get, the availability of analytics and its capabilities may differ.

For example, in the most simple dynamic number insertion solution, a user may see a distinct phone number based on ads they clicked, keywords they searched, or some other marketing campaign that has been set up. Each of these will have their own unique number to be displayed to the user and will tie back to show you analytics based on these specific campaigns.

Once you get to more robust DNI solutions, you can see more details on the consumer journey based on an actual specific user, rather than just the campaigns you have set up with DNI.

These DNI solutions will assign a unique dynamic number per user, which is usually based on cookies (keep in mind, there are some problems with attribution in cookie-based tracking). By collecting cookies on a device, the same dynamic number will be displayed every time, allowing you to track the actions taken by a person this way.

Although some DNI solutions may slightly differ, the setup for dynamic number insertion is basically the same, and only takes a few steps.

DNI Set Up & Use

  1. Determine your highest daily number of concurrent users on your website. This will be used to determine your dynamic number pool, which must be provisioned ahead of time with a manual DNI solution. With a more robust DNI solution, this step can be fully automated.
  2. Install a one-line snippet of JavaScript on your website.
  3. When a user visits your website, DNI’s JavaScript will detect the user and/or source they came from and swap out the phone number automatically for that unique user or source.
  4. When the user calls the dynamic phone number, you can tie back online actions made before the call to your campaigns, ad sets, ads, keywords, or even consumers – depending on the solution.

A more reliable DNI solution – without cookies

As it currently stands, not all solutions are created equal. A more reliable dynamic number solution does not use cookies, allowing the data delivered to be highly accurate and person-specific instead of “user” specific. There are enough problems with attribution: browsers changing, devices changing, cookie blocking, and even VPN services that get in the way of accurately determine marketing contribution.

How DNI works without cookies

With a dynamic number insertion solution that does not use cookies, the page loads with the DNI script, and users will start to be tracked in two ways:

  • ID (Unique Identifier) as a unique person without using cookies based on:
    • Device ID, IP, Location, and other discrete detection.
    • Cross-referencing a proprietary database and other indiscrete detection.
  • Sessions. These can be grouped to include:
    • Time/Dimensions
    • Activities/Interactions/Engagements
    • Properties (moving from different owned domains)

Information is stored about this unique user that allows not only cross-domain tracking but actual cross-device tracking as well. Instead of relying on cookies for a user, CallSource’s DNI will track a specific person no matter the device they are using at that moment: desktop, phone, tablet, etc. In addition, our solution does track users across browsers and VPNs. No other DNI solution can automatically do all of this – but it only matters if you want accurate and reliable data.

Want to accurately track real people – so you aren’t missing any of your marketing data?

For online to offline attribution, many types of conversion actions are tracked:

  • Chats
  • Emails
  • Calls
  • Form Fills
  • Texts

Automating the pool of numbers can also help so you don’t have to rely on the specific number of dynamic numbers that you first allotted with your DNI solution. Why is this important?

CallSource Visitor Chart

If you end up having more concurrent visitors on your site than originally allotted for, a regular DNI solution would end up having to assign the same number to multiple users – not an ideal situation. The whole point of using DNI is to map and attribute actions back to the sources. If people are getting assigned the same number, you would lose this insight completely.

Dynamic number insertion script

Typically, DNI uses lines of JavaScript code to be enabled. This code is responsible for swapping out the phone number seen to the end-user depending on your DNI setup.

Dynamic number insertion simply needs one script to give you multitudes of data. Compared to static number call tracking where you have to manage every page and every unique number to make sure it’s in the right place, with DNI, you can now just throw the script on and forget about it.

Dynamic number insertion and call tracking

Dynamic numbers are typically used on your website’s landing page – but they aren’t necessary for all of your online marketing efforts.

Sometimes a static call tracking number works best in certain listing areas that your business appears online. Anywhere you cannot place the Javascript code would be where you place a static call tracking number.

Read our comprehensive guide for step-by-step instructions for listing call tracking numbers in the most popular business listings:

Using Call Tracking Online: 7 Popular Listing Services

Can I use both call tracking and DNI?

Yes, you can – and should – utilize call tracking and dynamic number insertion at the same time! As mentioned, both of these solutions have similar, but different, outcomes and reasons for using them – and will be used for different marketing campaigns and attribution.

Call tracking is, of course, the most reliable way to track your offline attribution, and should also be used on various other online sources for people to contact your business from.

Want to start using DNI?

Do you think that your website could benefit from dynamic number insertion? You can begin implementing DNI for your business in no time and with minimal effort.

Click here to have someone reach out to you, or contact a representative today at 888.788.0123 to learn more and compare our solution to anything out there.

Summary

What is dynamic number insertion?

Dynamic number insertion (DNI) is a type of call tracking that ties users’ online actions to their phone call to your business. DNI can track many types of actions such as channels visited, keywords searched, and ads clicked on prior to calling the dynamic tracking number.

How does dynamic number insertion work?

Dynamic number insertion swaps out phone numbers based on a unique user or source where the dynamic phone number appears. When this unique phone number is dialed, it connects to the main phone number you choose (typically your main business line), and you are able to view that individual’s online actions taken before calling the dynamic number.

Most DNI solutions rely on cookies to track unique “users,” but CallSource’s DNI solution uses a cookieless method of tracking for truly reliable data down to each person. We also use a dynamic pool of numbers to ensure that if your website traffic goes above the number of users originally allotted for, the same number will never be displayed to two different people.

How easy is it to install dynamic number insertion?

CallSource’s dynamic number insertion solution requires only one line of script to be enabled.

Why do I need dynamic number insertion?

Dynamic number insertion is a must-have for marketers that want to tie their online and offline attribution together for a more robust look into their customer journeys. It enables you to see what actions led a consumer to call your business.

Learn the complete consumer journey for more reliable marketing ROI.

Get Dynamic Number Insertion.

I want to talk to learn more about dynamic number insertion.

Filed Under: CallTrack, LeadMetrix + DealSaver Tagged With: Call Management, Digital Management

How Call Tracking Works: 7 Call Tracking Myths Busted!

February 14, 2019 by Cassie Ciopryna

Learn some real call tracking facts and how call tracking works, breaking myths and out-of-date information for call tracking services.

Call tracking software is a must for any smart marketer who wants to track both offline and online attribution.

While there are many call tracking services out there, most are pretty similar at their core. Call tracking requires placing unique call tracking numbers on all of your marketing sources so that you can track and record calls, and obtain additional call tracking metrics to help make smart, data-based marketing decisions.

If you’ve heard of call tracking (and perhaps even if you already use it!), you may have heard some “facts” about this service that are not true. Read below for some myths that you’ve probably heard about call tracking services, and what the truth really is.

1. Call tracking is a new technology

This myth may depend on your definition of new or old, but call tracking has been around for quite some time. In fact, it was invented by yours truly, CallSource, in 1991.

As happens with any useful technology, other companies have come around to create their own call tracking software more recently in the past 5-10 years, which may be why it seems to be a somewhat “newer” technology.

2. Call tracking ruins your SEO

While this had more truth to it many years ago than it does now, call tracking – especially when used correctly – can help your SEO efforts. SEO tactics are ever-changing, and call tracking has also evolved.

Call tracking helps you know your customers’ journey to your landing page and gives you insights about keywords that convert leads. It can also help in A/B testing. Call tracking is a reliable indicator of whether your traffic is converting because it ties phone calls to your website.

With dynamic number insertion, which only needs one line of script to be installed on your website, you can follow the complete customer journey, online to offline.

3. Call tracking is only useful for offline attribution

While call tracking was invented for offline marketing attribution (especially since the internet wasn’t really quite a “thing” yet in 1991 for most businesses) and is still used to track offline advertisements’ success, the technology now exists to tie your online and offline marketing attribution to truly close the loop with DNI as mentioned above.

Call tracking is a useful tool for online to offline (O2O) attribution tracking, as well as for strictly offline or online tracking too.

Discover more out about the only solution that can track every call, chat, text, and web visit all in one real-time dashboard.

4. Your phone number is your brand – and customers won’t like seeing different numbers to reach you from different advertisements

While we do recommend custom vanity phone numbers to help with business branding purposes, let’s be honest – how many of your customers actually have your phone number memorized or would notice if you had different phone numbers on different advertising pieces?

We’re in the 21st century. Most people will find a phone number online or whatever marketing piece they’ve received, and then dial that number. They aren’t looking at all of your listings to compare what phone numbers are listed – they are just calling when they find your number because they have a need, then and there.

5. No one wants to dial a toll-free number to reach my business

False.

via GIPHY

Over half (58%) of consumers prefer to dial an 800 number vs. a local number to reach a business.1

Even local businesses can benefit from toll-free numbers on some of their marketing materials. Use a toll-free vanity number instead of a local number and see your call rates sky-rocket as well, as they are much easier for memory recall than a random array of digits.

How Do Customers Neurologically Remember a Vanity Number?

Still not sure if you’d want to use toll-free numbers instead of local numbers on your ads? No problem! You can use local numbers for call tracking, too. You can port in any existing numbers you have, or assign new local numbers from your call tracking provider’s hub of available numbers.

6. I have to replace all of my phone numbers to implement call tracking

While you may assign new numbers to some of your advertisements to reap the benefits of call tracking services, it is not necessary.

As mentioned, you can port in your existing numbers to your call tracking provider. A second, CallSource-specific feature is the ability to provide metrics on any phone numbers that already have call recording features on them without even needing to port them out from your current carrier.

Contact a CallSource representative to learn more about gaining the benefits of call tracking on your current phone numbers.

7. Call tracking is unreliable

As far as the standard, basic level of call tracking without any additional analytics, call tracking can’t get any more straight-forward and reliable. A consumer sees your phone number, dials it, and your call tracking reporting will display the number they called in from and the ad source that is tied to that number.

Call tracking is far more reliable than having call handlers try to remember to ask callers how they heard about your business on every call, and expecting callers to accurately recall and tell you how they heard about you.

Although most call tracking services utilize AI and speech analytics to deliver their call analyses, CallSource, the inventors of call tracking, uses real human analysts to listen to calls and deliver robust and accurate data for truly reliable analytics – over 96% accuracy, in fact.

While speech analytics is useful for a number of things, it is disappointingly incapable of the accuracy required to grade an employee’s telephone skills fairly.

With advances in machine learning, speech analytics may one day overcome background noise and mobile phone audio issues, and understand the complexities of human conversations; homonyms, accents, and idiomatic expressions. For the present, however, expert, well-trained, analysts are still needed for accurate results – so that is what CallSource’s call data is based on.

Want to learn more about call tracking?

Now that you know the facts about call tracking, it’s time to implement this service for your appointment-based business.

Click here to have someone reach out to you, or contact a representative today at 888.788.0123 to learn more.

Start tracking your inbound calls.

Get Call Tracking.

I want to talk to someone about utilizing call tracking at my business.

Sources:
http://www.mountainmg.com/800_power_stats.php

Filed Under: CallTrack Tagged With: Call Management

Building Your Brand with a Radio Ad that Uses a Vanity Number

November 28, 2018 by Cassie Ciopryna

With the combination of a Vanity number plus the radio, your ad will be unstoppable.

If you want your phone to ring more, there’s no question that a good Vanity number can accomplish that. Studies have shown that using a memorable phone number in your marketing ups your call volume dramatically, driving on average over 30% more calls to your business than using a regular phone number. And more calls mean more booked appointments and sales – it’s as simple as that.

Building Your Brand

A Vanity number is also a great way to build and strengthen your brand. It’s exclusive to your business and the service you offer. It cuts through advertising clutter with a simple, memorable message that you can hammer home repeatedly to get customers to remember you – and call you when they need your service.

Using Vanity Numbers in Radio Advertisements

One of the best mediums for using a Vanity number to build your brand is radio – here are three reasons why:

Market Reach and Penetration

Radio has a very broad reach. In 2016, radio reached 94 percent of Americans between the ages of 25 and 54 years. That’s incredible market penetration – and exceeds the reach of both television and smartphones by a significant amount.

Targeted Markets & Lower Cost

Radio is also a very targeted and cost-effective advertising medium. There are a tremendous variety of individual stations that likewise appeal to a wide range of demographics, so there’s something for everyone. Pricing is much lower than television as well. Your local radio station runs ads advertising both national and local businesses. And, you have a choice when getting a Vanity number as to whether you want nationwide coverage or statewide coverage (which is less expensive).

…try saying “888-I-HEAR-GREAT” out loud. Isn’t that a great number for radio ad for an audiology practice?

A Vanity Number is the Most Effective Call-to-Action in a Radio Ad

It was widely predicted that vanity numbers would lose value with the rise of mobile phones and internet as a replacement for phone calls. But did you know that studies have shown that more listeners remember Vanity phone numbers than URLs when listening to a broadcast?

And when you’re using a Vanity number in a radio ad, you can amp it up even more by using music or the natural rhythm found in the number you call. Here are examples of each.

Music + Easy-to-Remember Phone Number

You’re driving to work when you hear a jingle with a phone number – and it sticks in your head. You find yourself humming it.

Remember the Empire jingle? “Eight-hundred, Five-eight-eight, Two-three Hundred, Empire.” If you’ve ever heard it, I can almost guarantee that while you were reading that, the tune was running through your head. Is it a remarkable number in and of itself? Not really – but the accompanying jingle makes it really memorable.

Vanity Numbers with Memorable Sound Patterns or Rhythms

Even if you don’t set your Vanity number to music for your ad, you can make use of Vanity numbers that create memorable sound patterns or rhythms.

For example, try saying “888-I-HEAR-GREAT” out loud. Isn’t that a great number for radio ad for an audiology practice?

Say you’re driving along and an ad comes on with this number. You’d already been thinking you should get Dad in to get his hearing checked. This one is going to stick in your head and you might just find yourself calling them to see what they have to offer.

CallSource has a wide variety of great numbers available. If you want to learn more about how a Vanity number can help your business, or explore some options with us, search our available numbers or contact one of our CallSource Vanity Specialists. Just call 855-GOT-VANITY – we’ve got YOUR number!

 

Sources:
https://www.ringboost.com/blog/6-stats-that-show-the-competitive-advantage-of-vanity-numbers/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/415315/radio-reach-in-the-us-by-demographic-group/
https://www.bestphonenumbers.com/vanity-phone-number-advertising-is-more-memorable-to-car-buyers-than-urls-listed-in-offline-advertising-automotive-digital-marketing-professional-community/


Author Bio: As CallSource’s Vanity Specialist, Kathleen Breedyk enjoys connecting clients with the perfect Vanity number. A transplant from Canada to California, she plays piano and flute, enjoys jamming with her friends, traveling, magic, and spending time with her family and her dog.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathleen-breedyk-5a1b5043

Filed Under: CallTrack Tagged With: Call Management

Why Your Brand and a Website Redesign Matter

November 27, 2018 by Cassie Ciopryna Leave a Comment

Is it time to refresh your website’s look and feel? Here’s why you may want to.

CallSource and Our Brand

Great companies are built on strong brands that influence customer choice and build loyalty. A strong brand is a competitive asset, improves market position, and customer loyalty.

So what? A brand is the sum of all the experiences of a customer’s journey with the brand. Every customer engagement with a brand (good and bad) contributes to a company’s reputation.

One of our goals as CallSource re-launched their marketing in 2016 was to communicate CallSource’s brand, mission, vision, and purpose — with a visual voice that is true to our brand values.

As a company, we came together to define our mission and vision. CallSource’s purpose was established many years ago by our founder, and it is still true today—“To enhance performance, accomplishments, and results for individuals and organizations in work and in life.”

Once established, marketing set out to create the brand guidelines and included our brand stance, promise, and attributes. A year later, we launched a website that speaks to who CallSource is as an organization.

Aligning the Brand with Our Website

When you have a great brand, you need to ensure your visual voice matches the brand’s core values. A business’s website is a huge visual representation of who your company is, how it speaks, and what it stands for. Your website should be synonymous with the value you add to customers.

A 2018 goal for the Marketing team was to redesign our website. We needed it not only from a technical point of view—UX, quick uptimes, mobile-friendly navigating, and general user experience—but also for an emotional, interactive experience to reflect the CallSource brand.

Marketing is ever-evolving, and a website is a major part of any content marketing strategy. With growing marketing stacks, a company needs to stay up-to-date with the latest technologies and trends.

New Website = Refreshed Brand

With a new website comes a whole new look and feel for customers who are re-discovering you or consumers who have not interacted with your company before.
When our customers think of CallSource, they think of a company that has integrity, is built on over twenty-five years’ of experience, and treats each client— regardless of size— with respect.

CallSource can transform your business’ performance and make a difference in the lives of your employees.

Filed Under: Reputation Management, CallTrack, Call Coaching, Telephone Performance Analysis Tagged With: Call Management, Performance Management, Digital Management, Reputation Management, Announcements & Events

  • « Previous Page
  • Page 1
  • …
  • Page 5
  • Page 6
  • Page 7
  • Page 8
  • Page 9
  • …
  • Page 18
  • Next Page »
CallSource, solutions for advanced call tracking, performance coaching & responsive customer service

More Information

  • Automotive Data Insights
  • Digital AI℠
  • Home Services Data Insights
  • Legal
  • MSA
  • Privacy
  • SAAS
  • Security

About CallSource

  • Blog
  • Careers
  • Contact Us
  • Events
  • Sitemap
  • Team
  • The Company We Keep
  • Your Source

Partners

  • Nexstar Network
  • AutoID
  • BDR
  • GM iMR
  • Sycle

Contact

5601 Lindero Canyon Road
Suite 210
Westlake Village, CA 91362

support@callsource.com
800-500-4433

Schedule a Demo

© CallSource. All Rights Reserved.