3 Types of Marketing Agencies That Need Call Tracking

What separates the best agencies from the rest of the herd? Creative vision? Attention to detail? Sure, those things will always be important. But, at the end of the day, your customers are hiring you to deliver results. The best agencies are those that can not only deliver good results, but can also perpetually connect effort to outcome.

Back in the Mad Men days, marketers had no way of proving which ads caused a business’ phones to light up. Luckily, times have changed. Call tracking not only gives marketers a real-time view of which ads and keywords cause the phones to ring, but also which drive the best calls, and ultimately, the most revenue. When a call tracking solution integrates with a CRM, as ours does, you’ll always know how calls impact pipeline. We previously discussed some ways that direct marketing agencies can use call tracking to increase customer retention and drive more ROI. Here are three other agency models that can benefit from call tracking.

Customer Acquisition Agencies

Most agencies focus on a specific area of the sales pipeline – driving traffic, generating leads, and so forth. However, customer acquisition agencies take ownership of the entire sales pipeline. Not surprisingly, these agencies have a high level of accountability. Not only do they have to prove that they’re delivering leads or opportunities, they are on the hook for actually closing deals.

For this type of agency to work best, Sales and Marketing have to be flying in close formation. Getting sales reps and marketers to collaborate isn’t always the easiest task, but collaboration is built into our software. Our call tracking system integrates seamlessly with Salesforce.com to make sure Sales and Marketing are always on the same page. Real-time dashboards tell marketers which efforts are driving revenue over the phone, enabling marketers to spend more on ads, keywords and content that generate the calls that pay the bills. Sales reps can benefit from call tracking too. Our system provides them with marketing data at the start of all inbound calls.

Media Buying Agencies

The best ad in the world is worthless unless it connects with the right audience. Imagine your shoe company just made a million-dollar commercial for high-performance basketball shoes. Would you rather it aired during an NBA game or during an episode of Matlock? Media agencies buy time and space for ads with the goal of placing the creative in front of the right audience. While some media agencies are in-house as part of a full-service ad agency, there are other agencies that focus squarely on media buying.

When administered correctly, tracking calls can be a game-changer for media agencies. This is because it’s often so challenging to determine which ad times deliver the best ROI. However, by fitting a TV commercial, radio ad, or billboard with a unique phone number, media agencies can qualify which ads, time slots and locations drive the best results. The result is that media agencies can eliminate all guesswork and make smarter advertising investments.

Digital Marketing Agencies

It’s easy to see how call tracking can benefit agencies that specialize in offline efforts like TV ads or direct mailings. However, digital agencies can gain just as much insight by tracking calls. Digital agencies offer a range of services, including SEO, SEM, website development, content marketing, blogging and social media. While software like Google Analytics can help digital marketers determine which efforts lead to online conversions, insight is routinely lost the moment a customer picks up their phone to call a business. In fact, there are many industries like healthcare and travel that close a significant portion of business over the phone.

Call tracking can enable digital agencies to take credit for leads, opportunities and revenue that result from phone calls. All you need to do is provision a unique call tracking number for every marketing channel, campaign or keyword. Then, by adding some simple java script to your site, you can dynamically replace your standard business number with a number that is tied to the effort a lead viewed before calling. Imagine how easy it would be to create digital content if you knew which keywords offered the best returns.

No matter which type of marketing agency you work for, it’s  easier to retain customers and close more business when you know which efforts drive the most lucrative calls.