Your traffic analytics will by default show you the number of visitors and pageviews for your website, and where they came from, but how does that help you? What you really want to know from your website is – which of your visitors are your buyers, who tried to contact you, and how. In short – conversion data.
These important metrics such as new signups, subscribers, number of downloads (ebooks, whitepapers, case studies, etc.), and phone calls initiated on your website are really what you should actually be tracking. That is what we will be focusing on in this article with three different methods on how to track website call conversions.
1. Tracking website call conversions via Google Analytics.
Having someone give you a call directly from a telephone number on your website is considered as a goal completion. For that, first you need to create this goal in place in your analytics, and then place the tracking code in your page HTML. Here are the steps involved:
A. Go to your Google Analytics account
B. Click on the Admin option on the bottom left
C. Click on Goals
D. Click + Goal to set up a new goal.
Whenever you click on a “+ Goal” you will get a screen like the one you see below. Choose one of the two options – TEMPLATE or CUSTOM. The second one is the right choice if you don’t have any pre-filled configurations saved in your analytics.
Step 1 – GOAL SETUP
Template – You can start off with a pre-filled configuration,
OR
Custom – Start off with a completely new setup. We recommend this setting as you are sure of what you want to achieve – i.e. track call conversions.
Select an option and click CONTINUE.
Name – Enter a unique name for your goal. Naming each goal different from the other will help you distinguish it from the rest making your goal conversions reports easy to understand.
Goal Slot ID – These are numbers assigned to each goal that is created. This allows you to categorize the different types of goals you have on your site.
Remember you won’t have the option of deleting or replacing goal details later on, so be very careful before creating one. After that you have:
Goal Type – Google Analytics has 4 ways to track your goals:
1. Destination goals – Tracking through URLs – example – Welcome.html
2. Duration goals – Tracking through time – example – 10 min or more
3. Pages/Screens per session goals – Tracking through pages or screens – example – 3 pages
4. Event goals – Tracking through activity – example – Played a video, clicked on a link, etc.
To track incoming calls from your website, you need to create an EVENT goal. So go ahead and select ‘Event’ as the goal type and click CONTINUE.
Step 3 – GOAL DETAILS
You might need to set up a few event conditions under ‘Goal Details.’ Note that this set of one or more conditions needs to be very carefully fed into Google Analytics as well as your website, failing which conversions might not be counted accurately. A conversion will only be counted if all of the conditions you set are true.
These four conditions are Category, Action, Label, and Value. Using the dropdowns, specify which of your events should be counted as goals. The anatomy of each event is provided by Google in this guide – Google Analytics About Event. Also, you might have to select a minimum of one event condition to properly categorize it under different groups you have assigned.
Another thing of use here is the Goal Value Switch. If you want to set the event value as the goal value for the conversion, then you need to toggle on this switch. However, If you don’t have a value defined in the condition above that matches your event tracking code, (How to apply Google Analytics Tracking Code can be found after completing all the steps), nothing will appear as the Goal Value.
Click SAVE after you have completed all of this and now you are ready to track all call conversions that take place on your website.
Those were the steps involved in creating a goal from scratch in Google Analytics. However, the tracking code for this goal needs to be there on your webpages too, so that your Analytics knows what type of goal under which category is coming in from the page, triggered by what event, and the value of the conversion.
Below this paragraph you can find the actual code that needs to be added to the hyperlink for the clickable phone number on the page on which the number is displayed. Once you have done this, anyone clicking on the number will trigger the event count in Real-Time reports, under the “event” sub-category in Google Analytics.
ga(‘send’, ‘event’, [eventCategory], [eventAction], [eventLabel], [eventValue], [fieldsObject]);
Let’s see it in an example. Say you have a telephone number that you want your customers to click and reach you. The number is 1234-567-8901. Now let’s say you already have an event category – Phone Call Tracking, an event action – Click/Touch, an event label – Home Banner and an event value – 2. So now the code will become
<a href=”tel:1234-567-8901″ onclick=”ga(‘send’, ‘event’, ‘Phone Call Tracking’, ‘Click/Touch’, ‘Home Banner’, ‘2’);”>123.456.7890
Add this kind of tracking code to every number displayed on your website, and watch the calls being logged as events being triggered in Real-time in your analytics, and then head to the goals section to see how many goal completions it shows. This is what will make your traffic analytics truly useful and actionable.
2. Tracking website call conversions using call tracking tools.
The main function of any call tracking tool is to trace calls back to specific keyword searches, web pages, ads – social media and digital, mobile and even through offline campaigns. Along with that, you get complete data on each call including caller’s activity on your website, which can be used for insights into what content converts visitors to phone leads. Here’s how most current call tracking tools work.
Step 1 – You will be assigned a unique virtual number that will be displayed on your website or even on different billboards, and it can be different for each ad campaign or client.
Step 2 – Prospects and potential customers who are interested or want more information about your product will see the virtual number displayed, and may click to call.
Step 3 – The provider’s analytics captures data for each call, such as call duration, call conversions, call cost, date and time of the call, calling parties, and more.
Step 4 – The fourth and the final step is when you gain actionable insights by generating reports about your campaigns and find out how to get more people to convert.
These call tracking tools such as WhatConverts, NinjaCat and DialogTech can help you measure phone call conversions from your search, digital, and even offline marketing campaigns.
3. Tracking website call conversions using call back tools
Another easy way to monitor calls, track conversions and manage the effectiveness of all these calls from anywhere, is done via a Call Back Tool on your website. A huge advantage of a call back tool over any other tool and even google analytics is that you get an instant notification when your potential customer requests for a call back. Some of these tools, like Lucep, are even backed up with AI, informing you and growing together with every click for a call made on your website.
In a recent interview, Lucep CEO Kaiesh Vohra talked about how the widget sits inside your website and tries to engage with its users and eventually learn from their interaction and goes on with the process of creating new leads. The way a call back tool works is almost similar to the way a call tracking software works
The call-back widget appears on a business website, much like any other customer service tool. Prospective customers can enter their name, phone number, and query (optional) and then click on submit to initiate a call back request.
On your side, a notification pops up on a designated sales team member’s phone with the help of an app. Your sales team can then get in touch with the customer instantly. The good thing again is that you get notified about all website call conversions at the time they are taking place, which is ideally the best time to respond to your leads.
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