Data-driven marketers have their online conversion funnel down to a science. They know exactly how many clicks their paid search campaigns are generating, how many of those clicks are converting, and the revenue value of each conversion. This allows them to optimize their bidding strategy to secure the best possible return on investment.
However, many data-driven marketers aren’t taking the same kind of rigorous, scientific approach to the phone call conversions their campaigns drive. A recent study found that 62% of marketers fail to attribute revenue to inbound calls. Some marketers may see that someone engaged with the click-to-call button, and that’s as far as their data goes. What happened on that call is a mystery — for all they know, the caller could’ve asked for directions, purchased their most expensive product, or recited Liam Neeson’s monologue from Taken.
If you aren’t taking a data-driven approach to the phone calls your campaigns drive, you’re probably leaving revenue on the table. This is a dangerous time to rely on guesswork, as marketing budgets are shrinking due to economic pressures.
In this post, I’ll cover why data-driven marketers shouldn’t be okay with guessing about phone call conversions. I’ll also talk about how you can take a data-driven approach to your phone leads with a call tracking solution like Invoca.
As you undoubtedly know, analysts are predicting a recession in 2023. Economic headwinds are putting pressure on businesses and, as you know, when times get tough, marketing budgets are often the first thing to go. A recent study found that most marketers expect flat or reduced budgets in 2023.
In this economic climate, data-driven marketers don’t have the luxury of relying on guesswork. If you aren’t tracking your call conversions, you’re probably underreporting the ROI of your campaigns to leadership. To make the best case for defending your marketing budget — and possibly even your job — you need to account for every dollar of revenue your marketing generates.
A key reason you shouldn’t be okay with guessing about phone call conversions is that callers are often your most valuable customers. Think about it: someone who engages in a conversation with one of your agents is far more committed than someone who is browsing your website. People often reach out via phone because they’re in the final stages of finalizing their purchase and they need some extra information or reassurance to pull the trigger.
Still aren’t convinced that callers are important conversions for your business? I’ll let the data do the talking:
Want more stats about the importance of phone calls? Check out our Ultimate List of Call Tracking and Conversation Intelligence Statistics
The data-driven marketer’s mission is to continuously experiment with new tactics, so you can be sure you’re driving the best ROI possible. You probably A/B test multiple variations of every ad and landing page you launch. And, once you know what’s working, you allocate your budget to the highest-performing campaigns.
But when you run your tests, are you accounting for how many phone call conversions each ad or landing page drives? Or are you just judging success based on online conversions?
If you aren’t taking phone call conversions into account, you could be making the wrong optimizations and bidding on underperforming campaigns. For example, you may believe a campaign is underperforming when it shows a low web conversion rate, but perhaps it’s driving more phone call conversions — and higher value orders — than your other campaigns. You could be turning off your highest-value campaigns without even knowing it!
When you track phone call conversions, you can see a complete view of your ROI. This allows you to put your ad dollars where they make the greatest impact on your bottom line.
Today’s consumer expects brands to know them on a deep level, and that means personalizing their experience based on past interactions. According to McKinsey, 71% of consumers say they're more likely to purchase from brands that provide personalized experiences. If your data-driven marketing strategy doesn’t include personalization, your conversion rates will suffer.
The best way to fuel personalization is with data — when you capture deep insights about your customers, you can better understand their wants, needs, and preferences. Phone conversations are one of the most powerful data sources — in these interactions, your customers are telling you exactly what they want and how to make them happy.
With conversation intelligence, you can capture zero-party data from phone conversations at scale. This allows you to create a cohesive experience across every channel the customer engages with. For example, you can pinpoint leads who called, showed intent, and didn’t convert so you can add them to your nurture stream or retarget them with tempting promotions. You can also suppress retargeting to customers who already converted on the phone so you can use that budget to drive new customer acquisition.
When you personalize every touchpoint in the buyer journey, you drive more conversions and increase the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns. You also reduce wasted ad spend with smarter suppression tactics.
If you’re making assumptions about call conversions, you’re probably under-reporting how many conversions you drive. You may also be over-reporting your CPA, and making bad optimization decisions that waste marketing dollars. This can drain your budget and make it difficult to prove your full impact on your bottom line.
Want to see how much guessing about calls is costing you? Check out our Marketing Assumption Cost Calculator here.
When you tried our Marketing Assumption Cost Calculator, were you surprised by the numbers? Or worse, did they send a cold chill down your spine? If so, don’t worry — a call tracking solution can help you take the guesswork out of call conversions.
With Invoca, marketers can track the phone calls their campaigns, ads, keywords, and landing pages drive. And not only does Invoca track call quantity — it also tracks call quality, so you can understand how many calls are resulting in conversions and revenue. This allows you to calculate your full ROI, and make smarter optimization. With Invoca’s data, you can close the loop and optimize for call conversions the same way you optimize for online conversions.
Invoca also integrates with your existing martech tools, like Google Ads, Google Analytics, Salesforce, Facebook Ads, Adobe Analytics, and more. Your call tracking data will populate right where you need it, and you won’t have to change your existing workflows.
See how Invoca works in the short video below:
Want to learn more about how Invoca call tracking can help you spend smarter and drive more leads at a lower cost? Check out these resources:
The original version of this page was published at: https://www.invoca.com/blog/driven-marketers-guessing-call-conversions
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