Forum Moderators: DixonJones
Any and all suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance
We also found that surveys of asking what search engine they used, or where they found us via phone resulted in a lot of false answers. Often if people don't remember, they just say Yahoo or Google, when in fact they were using something completely different. We get 10% of people saying they first saw us on TV, when we've never run a tv ad.
We ended up converting all initial email contacts to form mail, and then tracking what KWs led anyone to send us email.
While its not perfect by any means, it at least gives us some idea of what KWs are converting.
The next thing requires a bit of programming and some changes on your Overture/AdWords, but well worth it. First, change your AdWords and Overture to go to Tracking URLS (like www.yoursite.com/?track=overture). This way you can easily identify in the logs which is which. Hopefully you're doing this already, as referrer counting isn't accurate since so many people block referrers now.
Anyway - you can probably guess what's next. With a little bit of scripting, you can determine where they came from and show a DIFFERENT PHONE NUMBER on your site. Everywhere there is a phone number can be replaced with this variable.
So if there is NO tracking URL, show phone number 1, your main number. If the tracking URL is Overture, show phone number 2. If the tracking URL is Google, show phone number 3. You would want to do this with a session variable (PHP or ASP) so it follows the user from page to page. Then all you have to do is see how many calls came to each number and there is your answer. Just make sure that all correspondence has your MAIN number, not one of your advertising numbers, so people don't re-dial the one they called first.
This is what I do on a couple of my sites, I have about 7 different numbers for one. Yeah it's a little extra money to the phone company every month, but well worth it for targeting purposes. I get more phone orders than web orders so it's really necessary for me to know what's effective or not. My phone company also gives me my bill by E-Mail, so I import the information into a database and can see how many calls each number received and how many "unique" callers there were (just incase anyone called the advertised number twice) and factor out dupes. Works great.
I've had mixed results with coupon codes. Some companies run a slim profit margin, and have resisted using such methods. For some products, people think it's tacky (obgyn - deliver your baby for less by using our code...hmm...). Other times it's worked well, and that solved a lot of problems.
My most problematic tracking company owns 1-800-keyword and 1-888-keyword, so they want to show that phone number everywhere and not display a lot of different phone numbers as we actively do phone number branding.
Any ideas on tracking calls to KWs/engines when you want to actively brand your 800 numbers?
Use those numbers on your AdWords/Overture visitors, and use your worded /memorable numbers on everyone else.
If the user returns to the site later (after having bookmarked it or remembers it) they'll see 800-name and not the number they dialed last time. Unless they come in from Overture/Adwords again.
I don't understand what multiple vs. single offices has to do with that? You have the toll-free number go to your hunt group, it becomes the same as ANY other number. You can get as many phone numbers as you want.
I have one client with 20 offices each with multiple 800 numbers, plus a call center for calls between 10pm-8am. The cost of adding 40 more 800 numbers plus the routing of phone numbers by geographic regions does start to add up.
There is no way they would use a system to rotate through numbers based on search engine referrals as all of their conversions occur offline, and they want the branding of their 800 number for all customers.
Its not 800 cute name. Its 800 (the one word KW that everyone in the industry would love to come up first for in the search engines). So its an imporntant number as it makes them look like an authority as they own that number, and its very easy to remember.
The closest we've come to implementing something that works is to ask the person where they found the number (thus offline and online), and then they just hit *number on the phone and it logs the info.
This does make it easier to cross reference conversions by ad methods by zip code for yellow page advertising, which is also very imporntant.
However, this isn't that accurate as we had to add a tv referal to the list as so many people were certain they heard about the number on tv, when in fact, it wasn't possible.
If you or your client has a small foot print system like an ESI 128+, it and many others offer unlimited internal extensions that can be programmed to hit hunt groups and display a special message. Feed the automated attendant output into any simple application and sort to get basic ROI.
To get more ganular, run the output against sales figures - now you still have to count on the sales rep to enter the special message code into the OE system if you want granular sales tracking.
1-800-buy-mystuff ext. 91 or 95 or 99. Keep the numbers out of your normal extension range and attempt to map them diagonally (fewer user mistakes).
Auto attendant message sample…
Thank you for calling XYZ company, if you have an extension number or know the number of the party you would like to speak with, please enter it now. For a marketing press 15 to reach fulfillment press 26, for a directory press 59 or stay on the line and someone will attend to you shortly.
If you track something it is better than tracking nothing. Let’s face it, ROI=0 vs. ROI= some $ figure.
