The problem with Google’s call tracking tool
Google’s very own phone call tracking software enables users to see when someone visits a website after clicking on an ad and then goes on to make a phone call. This is valuable insight, to a certain extent, for Google Ads. But therein lies the rub. Beyond Google Ads, you’re still operating totally in the dark. Ask yourself three simple questions:
- Are all of your inbound phone calls generated solely from Google Ads clicks?
- Is Google PPC the only channel that drives your marketing strategy?
- Are you doing any other form of offline advertising?
With customers’ paths to purchase becoming increasingly complex, accurate data from every step of that journey, with attribution you can trust, is more important than ever. This is particularly true for industries with longer sales cycles, or industries selling high value, considered or complex goods and services. The travel and finance sectors are two key examples of industries that require a greater level of insight from their phone call data, particularly if you consider the potential length of research and consideration phases. For many businesses, it’s easy to get sucked into the belief that most of their inbound phone calls are being driven by PPC. In fact, ResponseTap data shows that for some of our customers just 20% of calls are generated by PPC. So, if you only look at data from Google Ads, you’re missing out on 80% of potential insights. Insight on the full customer journey, from first click right through to phone call conversion.
Why you need more than Google Ads call tracking
With Google’s call conversion tool, you could be seriously misattributing how your customers have converted. It won’t take into account organic search; it won’t consider social media conversions, either from paid social or individual social media posts. If you do any other form of advertising, on TV, radio or print, Google’s call tracking software is rendered useless. So, if you’re only tracking PPC calls, you’re at risk of mis-attributing revenue and most definitely won’t be maximizing the real value of all your marketing channels. And as Google cookies last for just 30 days, if your sales cycle runs beyond this there’s a serious danger you’re going to miss out on attribution data.
ResponseTap: intelligent call tracking
With ResponseTap, as soon as someone lands on your website you can trace all subsequent visits and calls back to that initial visit; you can see the whole customer journey. First click, right through to last click and every click in between. So, if someone clicks through to your website from a PPC ad, leaves, comes back two days later via a social campaign and then calls from the number uniquely displayed to them on your website, the call will be attributed to both the PPC ad as the first click and the social campaign as the last click. If they visited numerous times in between, those visits would also be tracked. In fact, with ResponseTap, because we pass our call data into Google Analytics and other 3rd party platforms such as bid management tools, it’s still possible to attribute calls to specific keywords and manage those bids accordingly. This is invaluable insight that Google call conversion alone can’t provide. And at ResponseTap, we maintain our cookies for 12 months. This means you don’t have to worry about longer sales cycles and customer journeys; we capture it all. In short, Google’s tool is hugely limiting how you can optimize campaigns and maximize the potential for your budget. It means you can never fully understand the behavior of your customers and how they found your products or services. Talk to us now about upgrading your call tracking software to reveal the true picture of your marketing efforts.