Howdy. Let’s chat about the current scenario of call tracking removal from GBP. But fear not, we have outlined some creative and mind-blowing strategies to help you navigate this situation. So, let’s dive and explore what marketers can do now that call tracking has been dropped from Google’s business Profile.
What is call tracking & why is it important?
The method of tracking marketing activities that are generated via calls is called ‘CALL TRACKING‘. One of the very first steps to gain lucidity from customer conversations that can enhance customer experiences and increase revenue is call tracking.
Call tracking refers to the process of linking offline calls to online customer journeys.
It involves a unique phone number to track the source of incoming calls. When a customer call is generated it is routed through a call tracking system which records information like phone number, date, time, average duration of call, waiting time, etc.
Now, coming to its importance; it serves as a foundation for your marketing attribution data by capturing the caller’s information and the source of the call’s origination which helps marketers make smarter and data-driven decisions. Call tracking both inbound and outbound will enable you to overview the source of channels and keywords.
Call tracking is essential to identify areas of improvement ——-increasing conversions and sales rates, allowing you to monitor leads without falling any cracks in between.
Google’s decision to remove call tracking from business profiles….
Formerly, in June 2023, Google removed the call tracking feature from Google Business Profiles (GBP). This change was too noticed by many marketers and businesses.
The reason behind dropping the call tracking feature is known to be an imperfect feature that fitfully routes phone calls to the wrong business. The call tracking feature is supposed to be a buggy feature—-not working appropriately.
Ben Fisher, Google Business Profile Expert tweeted “Good Riddance, that was a buggy mess—–redirect calls to other merchants”.
The primary reason behind the removal of call tracking from business profiles is just that Google aims to streamline the user experience on its platform. Sometimes, call tracking features can be too complex for users to navigate, leading to confusion or difficulty in assessing relevant information.
The removal of GBP call tracking had a significant impact on marketers. Call tracking has been a valuable tool for marketers ——measuring the effectiveness of their campaigns. This mislaying of features makes it difficult to gauge the success of campaigns, ensuring marketers make informed decisions.
The impact of removing GBP call tracking will majorly impact small businesses as it was free for them and accessed with valuable attribution insights. On the other side, large-scale businesses are highly impacted by losing GBP call tracking as they were heavily hinged on local search —–driving calls toward their business locations.
7 alternative strategies that marketers can use
Embrace the change, get creative, and continue with our below-mentioned strategies for call tracking, so you can enhance your marketing efforts in new and exciting ways!
Third-party call tracking platform
Seek out third-party call-tracking platforms and approaches for robust call-tracking features and integrations. Third-party tracking is referred to as the snippets of codes that are presented on multiple websites. This strategy can be utilized by marketers via collecting and sending information regarding user’s browsing history to other companies, mostly for advertising purposes.
Monitor call recordings
Record and review calls to gather insights into customer preferences, pain points, and conversion triggers. These insights can shape marketing strategies and improve call conversion rates. Monitoring call recordings is like securing call data——- accessing recordings allows marketers to revisit the spot for specific conversations and deal with conversion data.
Implement CRM integration
Marketers can efficiently connect call tracking solutions with Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems like Hubspot. This integration helps capture call data and associate it with customer profiles for holistic tracking and analysis. By integrating call tracking with CRM, marketers can prevent lead leakage plus you can prefer outbound calls and record them in the activity along with other interactions.
Gather customer feedbacks
Marketers can conduct post-call surveys to gather customer feedback——asking to review your business services. This feedback collected from your potential customers can offer you a deeper level of insight into the effectiveness of various marketing efforts.
Implement form submission
Another great strategy to track customer interaction is to encourage users to fill out contact forms instead of calling directly. Thereby, tracking of the submitted forms will ensure marketers to measure the volume of leads generated.
Track call conversions with analytics
Connecting your call tracking with analytics and installing them with code tracking ensures marketers can capture data. One can leverage website analytics tools like Google Analytics to track call conversions. This strategy can enhance marketing efforts toward customer interaction i.e. appointment tracking or service inquiries.
Leverage campaign-specific phone numbers
One of the most mindful strategies that marketers must need to indulge in is to assign different phone numbers for each marketing campaign or initiative. This ideation will allow them to track which campaigns are driving the most calls and conversions.
Approach for call tracking software
Invest in call tracking software that can provide you with mind-blowing and high-tech automated features like call recording, call analytics, and ensuring attribution tracking —to gain valuable insights into call conversions.
How can FlowUp help you?
FlowUp’s call tracking and analytics feature allows your businesses to monitor their phone leads and access insights from the calls generated. Along with the growth and popularity of omnichannel marketing, call tracking is really helpful for marketers to understand which channels and touchpoints are igniting the most phone leads.
With our automated AI-powered omni-channel solutions marketers can optimize their campaigns for better performance and improve customer experiences and satisfaction across all channels.
Our call tracking and analytics software comes with powerful tracking capabilities such as;
Make purchases of unique caller IDs for particular campaigns;
- Efficiently tag caller IDs with multiple marketing channels
- Track success with real-time reporting
- Provides detailed insights into their leads list
- Streamlines automated follow-up process
Wrapping up…….
Be mindful of the fact that change is inevitable, and adapting to new circumstances is the key to staying ahead in the dynamic world of high-tech and automated solutions. This significant change also presents an opportunity for innovation and exploring alternative strategies that marketers can optimize.