Many law firms are now using website call tracking. Now you ask yourself “Is this something my law firm should be doing?”. But now you maybe thinking, hold on what even is call tracking and how can it help? If so read on to find out more.
What is website call tracking?
Website call tracking shows you which channels, campaigns and keywords are sending you traffic to your website that then converts into phone calls. It will also allow you to see what keywords are driving leads. Certain software applications will also enable you to listen to the phone calls and improve the knowledge of the staff handling those calls. Ultimately finding out which part of your marketing is making people pick up the phone and call your firm.
How it works
Most call tracking software uses Dynamic Number Insertion (DNI) technology. This allows the main phone number on your website to be overridden by a different number unique to an individual visitor, specific ad campaign, geographical area or other specific options.
From the individual number, you can then track the journeys that lead each visitor to make their call. Including which Campaign they clicked on if coming from an ad on Google, which keywords were used in the organic search to get to your website and information on how many pages they looked at on your website before making the call.
Why is call tracking important?
Website call tracking will enable you to see if your marketing budget is being well spent. It will show you where your leads are coming from and how often they are coming from that source. This can then lead you to analyse your marketing budget spend and seeing if that spend was worthwhile.
The benefits of call tracking to law firms
Of course it will allow you to get to know your website visitors more, allowing you to be more targeted in where you market your firm. It will enable you to understand where they have come from and how they are searching for you.
It is also a valuable training tool to identify client relationship opportunities or indeed issues. Furthermore, keywords/insights from all transcripts for use in PPC and content targeting can increase leads. It can also help you find irrelevant search terms and stop people calling you thinking you’re someone else, including competitors. Finally, it’s lower cost than other paid for advertising alternatives.
Also, when phone tracking is set up you can connect most of the call tracking applications with Google Analytics which allows you to :-
- Know which marketing channel (organic / map / PPC / direct / referral / social) generated that phone call.
- Know which other marketing channels also played a part in the customer journey that lead to the phone call.
- Know where to spend (or cut back) on marketing spend and in which channels that money should be spent.
- Know which pages on your website people were on when they called you.
- Know which pages on your website that aren't performing well.
Software Available
Google AdWords (Free)
Google AdWords is an online advertising service developed by Google, where advertisers pay to display brief advertising copy, product listings, and video content within the Google Ad Network to web users.
Advantages:
- It’s free (the call tracking side of things that is!)
- Can see where calls are coming from after visitors have clicked on ad words.
- Dynamically-generate Google forwarding numbers that replace your business number on your site, without any cost.
- Easy to set up.
Disadvantages:
- Only works on AdWords; it can only track calls generated by Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns. These are normally only a small amount of a company’s marketing activity and if a call is made from SEO or social media, Google AdWords cannot track this, leaving a large gap in knowing where the call came from.
- Can’t keep track of missed calls.
- Calls cannot be logged.
- The service doesn't record phone conversations.
- Impossible to determine the uniqueness of phone calls, can’t determine whether of not you have had the calls before.
Call Rail (low cost)
Call Rail is an intuitive and powerful call tracking solution for data-driven marketers and measures call conversions from search, offline and digital marketing campaigns, including PPC keywords. Call recording allows easily qualifying leads, improving customer service and coaching the staff. The software also makes it easier to review and annotate phone calls.
Advantages
- Clear analytics by call dashboard, analyse call data by source, page, keyword, day and more. Easy to export and report on.
- 14 free day trial available and no contract
- Low cost
- Dynamic number Insertion – capture the full visitor journey.
- Record phone calls
- Instantly analyse call content with visual transcriptions.
Disadvantages
- Doesn't’t track location of where your views are coming from which can be vital for your marketing budget spend.
- Mid cost to consumer.
- Great for small businesses but lacks for large clients as detailed funnel information is limited.
- Difficult to use and online training courses not available for new users currently.
Ruler Analytics (Advanced)
Ruler Analytics ‘closes the loop’ between marketing and sales by matching real customer data against the exact marketing source from which it was generated. Utilising visitor level journey tracking to definitively calculate ROI for every marketing channel.
Advantages:
- Match phone calls with website visitors and how they found you.
- Track visitor journey – look at the pages your visitors looked at and where they came from.
- 500+ integrations
- Company Tracking – shows you real companies that have viewed your site
- Google Analytics integration
- Duration on site – can show you if a visitor has stuck around for 10 seconds or 10 minutes.
- Landing Page – find out what pages visitors are viewing and if your experiencing a high bounce rate, find out why they are leaving and do something about it to make them stay.
- Location specific – can track ROI in locations.
Disadvantages:
- Higher cost, depending on exact requirements.
- £149 for up to 2,000 calls a month