I recently wrote a long article at Search Engine Land on the advantages and disadvantages of different types of phone call tracking solutions. Many companies are spending a significant amount of dollars on PPC, SEO, banner ads, etc and do not understand how many phone calls those marketing channels bring in. To really optimize your advertising efforts, it is essential for most companies to track phone calls.
The article generated a lot of buzz among phone call tracking providers; which was good as it enabled me to finally catch up with Mongoose Metrics; a solution that lets you see phone calls in Google Analytics as well as other analytics solutions. I had originally heard about Mongoose Metrics from the Google Analytics blog post on GA integrations.
I talked to one of the co-founders, Jeff Tirey, who will also be speaking at Pubcon this year if you’d like to talk to him directly about their solution; and found their approach quite unique.
While some companies use a reverse proxy solution, correlate phone numbers to campaigns, or use a 1 phone number to 1 campaign solution; the conversation always comes back to pricing.
Unique Pricing Approach
Mongoose Metrics has taken a very unique approach to their pricing strategy which gets away from the cost of total phone numbers, and minutes used: it’s a session based pricing model.
This means that you do not have to determine how many numbers and minutes you will use. You can choose what types of sessions you wish to track, and then on those sessions show a call tracking number. The implications?
You can track:
- PPC by keyword, ad copy, landing page, or anything you desire
- SEO by keyword, engine, etc
- Banner buys
- Email blasts (once they hit your website)
- Or any channel you desire
To determine pricing, determine an estimate on the number of user sessions that occur for which you wish to track, and then talk to Mongoose about pricing and implementation. It’s pretty easy.
Once a user calls one of your call tracking number, Mongoose Metrics will serve a user session to your website with your defined parameters. This lets you see your phone calls within your analytics system. You do not need to marry up a phone call tracking interface with your analytics system, their system will do some of the work for you.
If you are a small company who can’t afford a large implementation, you might consider using it for a few months – determining exactly what keywords, ad groups, engines, etc are leading to phone calls and then turn it off.
If you’re a large company; this is a solution you should at least price versus other possibilities.
Their pricing model alone makes then an interesting player in the space. Their solution (which I have not tried yet) looks like it might solve issues for many businesses attempting to understand what makes a user pick up the phone and call them.
Optimizing for No Phone Calls
During our call, Jeff mentioned an interesting approach one of their customers’ is using to not receive phone calls. Yes, they do not want phone calls. The customer is a web based knowledge help system. Their goal is for their customer’s to find their answers on the web based system and not have to call in for help. Therefore, they examine the searches and pages which are resulting in phone calls in order to make their knowledge based system better. Creative.
Mongoose Metrics Screenshots:
Phone Call by Keyword (Click to enlarge):
Phone Call data in Google Analytics (Click to enlarge):
If you’re in the market for a phone call tracking solution, I’d recommend including Mongoose Metrics in the conversation. They do have an API; but I didn’t go into much details as to it’s specs.
As with all website optimization solutions, you need to determine what you need to learn to make actionable business decisions – and then find the best solution that helps you gain the proper insight. They won’t be the best fit for everyone; but if you want an easy pricing model, phone call tracking, and/or analytics integration; include them in the conversation.
As usual; none of these posts are paid endorsements. I found the solution interesting and thought it was worth raising awareness of a different type of call tracking solution.
