Are You Tracking Phone Calls From Your Offline Ads?

Photo by Quino Al on Unsplash

We’ve talked in the past about using call tracking  to tell if your Google Adwords Marketing or other online ads are converting well, but have you overlooked tracking your ads offline?

This could include:

  • yellow pages listings
  • radio ads
  • billboards
  • newspaper ads
  • trade magazines
  • and anywhere else you might list an ad that’s not digital

Accountability

Tracking offers you a degree of accountability that should be present in all of your marketing. If a publisher can’t prove their results for you, is your money really that well spent?

Unless you’re big enough to be running branding campaigns, sticking to a form of advertising that actually delivers results might be the best option for you.

Implementation

The best way to track your calls is by using a dummy-number that reroutes to your business’s phone. You create a new number for each ad, that way you can track which one is driving results.

We’ve used companies like CallRail or CallTrackingMetrics in the past, with quite excellent results. These services have a cost associated with them, but it’s certainly worth it if you’re spending thousands of dollars a month on advertising anyways.

Hint: CallRail is more user friendly.

Local Numbers

One obstacle you might run into is finding local numbers. In Chilliwack, there are no local numbers available from any of the online call tracking services because we’re on the border of a long-distance area (is long-distance even a real thing anymore?).

This required us to call Telus and get numbers physically installed at our location before we could port them to the call tracking company. This was expensive, and takes several months (we’re just as upset about it as you are, we promise).

We only do this on local customers who require a local number. If you’re okay with using a toll-free or non-local number, then the process can be done in minutes using the above provider’s number buying service.

Summary

If you aren’t tracking your offline advertising, why not? Many people are just unfamiliar with tracking, but it’s a KEY concept when it comes to marketing your business.

You must track your ads, otherwise you’re just fire hosing money into the community. If you have expensive ads running, start implementing tracking this week so you can find out what’s working and what’s not.