Why Keyword Level Call Tracking?

Keyword level call tracking. You’ve heard it, you basically know what it means, but why is it such a big deal?

Well, according to a recent Hanapin Marketing report 83 percent of marketing professionals are optimistic about their paid search campaigns, and 72 percent plan to spend more on PPC bids than they did in 2013. In fact, marketers are increasing their spend on a number of keyword-relevant initiatives this year including:

• 73% Google AdWords


• 55% Bing Ads


• 52% Display Networks


• 52% Facebook


• 26% LinkedIn


• 24% Twitter

In 2014, 85 percent of PPC marketers are planning to focus their efforts on increasing conversion rate optimization with the help of marketing automation tools, tag management, and new ad networks.

So if you are one of these PPC-focused marketers, keyword-level call tracking can play a key role in optimizing conversions for increased ROI of paid search campaigns. Here’s how:

PPC and Call Tracking

Google generates more than $15 billion in PPC search ad revenue annually alone as companies dedicate more money and resources to creating a highly effective search campaign. Brands compete over PPC ad keywords, often with certain search phrases skyrocketing in price. This places increasing pressure on marketers to ensure search campaigns are paying out and conversion rates continue to grow.

Marketers who use call tracking technology can get a leg up on competitors by tracking inbound calls back to specific keywords, PPC ads, and web pages to properly attribute new leads to the marketing source. This can show marketing teams exactly which campaigns are working and which are falling short, enabling decision makers to allocate budgets toward top-performing initiatives for a higher ROI.

Google Analytics and Google AdWords Don’t Track Calls

SEO tools such as Google Universal Analytics and Google AdWords report what keyword searches drive traffic to a website or landing page. But the technology cannot trace which keyword searches are making your phones ring, which is pretty important as phone leads offer a higher potential for purchase.

With more and more consumers conducting searches on their mobile phones, the number of inbound phone calls resulting from search results and PPC ads is set to grow as well. EMarketer predicts spending on mobile search in 2014 will reach $9.02 billion, up 83 percent from 2013.

This makes call tracking more vital than ever, to ensure a multichannel marketing campaign is being tracked, analyzed, and optimized across all mediums. If voice-based data is missing from analytics reports, the ROI of a campaign may be skewed, as it is not taking into account phone leads from search.

Once you have collected key call tracking data, you can integrate the findings into Google AdWords, Google Universal Analytics, and various bid management software platforms such as Kenshoo and Marin. The insights extracted from call tracking data provide guidance on future bid management campaigns, as well as how best to improve existing initiatives.

And don’t worry, our dynamic number insertion technology ensures call tracking will not hurt your SEO rankings. When properly implemented, call tracking does not prevent a company from maintaining consistency in their name, address, phone number (NAP) business information. Search engines does not index the snippet of JavaScript used to insert the trackable number, which means all other SEO efforts remain in tact and continue to drive results.

Don’t Forget The Tests

Any modern marketer will tell you: test everything, analyze…then test again. PPC ads and search campaigns are no exception. Not only can call tracking data provide marketers with proper attribution for leads derived from search, but it can also be applied to A/B testing of PPC landing pages and display ad designs.

When you create different variations of landing pages and display ads, you may opt to track the response rate and overall performance of each via Google Universal Analytics or other similar tools. These analytics reports, however, will not take into account phone leads generated from each variation. To get a more complete gauge on how a display ad or landing page will perform, be sure to include call tracking data in the A/B testing phases. Trust me, you will thank me later!

Why Keyword Level Call Tracking?