Is A Call Tracking System a Waste of Time and Money?

I have been debating for a while with some prospective users of AdMeter, who have said they think call tracking is a waste of time and money.

These are sophisticated marketing people so I have been listening closely to what they have said...after all, I want them to try out AdMeter so it makes sense if I can find out why they aren't buying it right?

The premise seems to be that when they look at call tracking systems measuring leads they say that they could be relied upon too much.

They suggest because someone responds to a particular email newsletter for example and the call tracking system picks this up...it doesn't necessarily mean that this email was responsible for the lead...it could have been the “nudge effect” of the direct mail, with the sms and the email that led to the call being made. Therefore, just tracking the call could lead one into a false sense of data namely thinking the other two marketing tools, (email and sms) could be dropped.

There is a good point to be made here. It’s true that there’s often a symphony of marketing tools being used by big companies to get the prospect to pick up the phone and make THAT CALL.  Relying only on call tracking data may skew results and prevent what we call ACCURATE THINKING.

However, there are a number of reasons that call tracking is invaluable...even if there are several nudge effects going on.

Firstly, I think that it is useful to ascertain which element of the marketing mix actually provides the “pick up the phone” nudge effect...

Even if this just tells you data about what you must not miss out i.e. best performing nudges... then this is a valuable piece of data from call tracking.

Secondly, call tracking systems like Admeter provide call recording. This is providing qualitative data and will tell any marketer just what other nudge effects are working.

The prospect’s own words, “I saw your advert in the newspaper (even if he responded to an email newsletter when calling) will highlight the nudge effects that are working. Call recording also enables you to grade the call and develop better conversion techniques...invaluable in themselves.

Thirdly, many companies really are relying on one or two major methods of marketing.

Their predominant methods are direct marketing. They are being used precisely to elicit a direct response. In fact, I would go as far to say that if companies are not making every piece of marketing direct marketing then they are really missing a trick. All marketing being direct marketing means that you should be tracking it. It’s likely to work straight out of the box. And when you hit a winner like this you really want to know about it.

So in closing, it’s true that brands which spend a lot of money in many different media may not be looking to call tracking to give them the all the big data they need. Then again, they aren't really engaging in response advertising.

However, most companies that do want to see a return on their marketing, understand that response equals leads and leads equals money most definitely do want to use call tracking.

For them, it is all about direct response. Branding is really a side issue. They want the phone to ring and they want to rake in the cash. Branding can come as a consequence of their direct marketing.

In my view, there is so much that call tracking systems can give in terms of insight and actionable information that they make ACCURATE THINKING something every company can afford and benefit from.