Working with Call Tracking Software and Google Analytics

Supercharge your Google Analytics Data for Better Campaign Metrics

There’s no question that Google Analytics is the most popular analytics tool. It’s free and very powerful yet it accommodates beginners as well as sophisticated marketers. However, at a simple level, Google Analytics is only as good as the data it collects. If it’s missing data, reporting will be inaccurate and so will be associated business decisions.

Data that isn’t collected automatically by Google Analytics are telephone calls. These can be calls associated with a specific marketing campaign such as a direct mail initiative, outdoor advertising or a website contact page. It can also include out-going calls made by sales teams.

Why should you care about call data?

While the world lives online, making calls is far from extinct. The results of many marketing campaigns are not measured effectively because they ignore incoming phone calls generated by the campaign. Rather, marketers measure website visits, downloads, completed forms, purchases and other metrics – not phone calls though.

Depending on the products and/or services marketed, incoming phone calls can be a very significant indicator to measure interest. In many cases an incoming phone call will more likely lead to a sales opportunity when compared to an online download of a PDF brochure.

To evaluate the effectiveness of a marketing initiative it’s important to include call tracking information.

How to include call data in Google Analytics

With ActiveDEMAND Call Tracking, combining call tracking with Google Analytics is surprisingly simple. After creating a free ActiveDEMAND account you search for a local or toll-free telephone number and select the one your want to use. Next you enter the number you want your new tracked number to forward to when someone calls. Finally, add your Google Analytics UTM data such as the name of your marketing campaign and source medium.

All that is left is to include the tracked number within your marketing campaign, on your website, direct mail initiative or anywhere you want. When the number is called, data is automatically recorded in Google Analytics. Visit your Google Analytics account and view your campaign data for a complete analysis.