Call Tracking: The Evolution of an Advertising Essential

19 Jun, 2021 Call Tracking: The Evolution of an Advertising Essential

Since its introduction several decades ago, call tracking has played a major role in the marketing and advertising landscape. Traditionally customers would call a business and be asked a couple of direct questions.

For example, where they heard about the business, how they got their phone number and who recommended them. Technology may have been able to track the location, date and time of the call, but it can’t gage human emotion, hence the information collected by the recipient of the call often proves invaluable for sales and marketing purposes.

On the downside, people in general do not tend to be good at recalling what it was that prompted them to take action; was it a TV commercial? An online ad? A billboard? Or simply hearing something in passing, not the kinds of things we usually pay attention to.

This is where the evolution of call tracking is proving a godsend for millions of businesses worldwide, this technology has changed beyond recognition over the years, bringing countless benefits to businesses of all shapes and sizes.

Here are just a few ways in which the evolution of contemporary call tracking is changing the way the world does business:

  1. Not just for the biggest businesses
    These days, the technology you need to conduct intensive call tracking activities is readily available and cheap. Particularly where businesses use a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and cloud computing.

     

    It can cost next to nothing to set up a comprehensive call tracking solution. It’s the kind of system that would’ve previously required a major investment in hardware and software, far beyond the reach of most SMEs.

  2. Call tracking doesn’t just track calls
    The beauty of contemporary call tracking technology is the way in which it’s engineered to deliver actionable insights. Rather than simply presenting you with reams of raw data you don’t know what to do with.

    Instead, you’re given the kind of information that prompts educated and informed decision-making. Call tracking solutions can be integrated with countless other technologies and marketing activities – Google Ads, Google My Business, web forms, text or chat, and other API-based integrations.
  3. It lets you monitor and optimize your marketing activities
    Omnichannel marketing inherently brings the challenge of monitoring the effectiveness and the ROI of various campaigns running at the same time.

     

    Call tracking technology has evolved to such an extent where it enables businesses to accurately track the customer experience and establish the effectiveness of numerous marketing activities, rather than attempting to track leads and customer experiences separately.

The shape of things to come…

As for what the future holds for call tracking, all predictions point to the growing prominence of artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Both of which are already playing a major role in the call tracking sector, particularly with regard to sentiment analysis, though this is expected to become the foundation of all advanced call tracking systems in years to come.