How To Get Call Tracking Data Inside Google Analytics In 4 Easy Steps

Marketers can’t afford to waste time working with incomplete data. The truth is, if Google Analytics doesn’t include call data, you don’t really know how people are interacting with your website. It's like forgetting the ice cream in your banana split -- it feels like something is missing. Without call data in Google Analytics, you're missing a huge piece of the picture, and that is dangerous.

Why Google Analytics Needs Call Data

Bringing call data to your Google Analytics dashboard gives you a truer understanding of how your customers are interacting with your brand online and offline. This new layer of data provides actionable insights about your customers and your marketing performance so you can optimize and improve ROI.  

With call data inside Google Analytics you’ll be able to:

• Measure true paid search ROI by measuring click and call conversions
• Optimize your landing pages and website based on click and call conversions
• Identify opportunities to increase call volume
• Improve campaigns and ad targeting with in-depth customer insights you only get from phone calls

With this data alongside your web analytics you can see how callers got to your website, what actions they took, and what happened once they made a call. You can view this information in Google Analytics event or goal reports, or you can easily create a custom dashboard (shown below).

How to Integrate Call Data with Google Analytics in 4 Easy Steps

1. Use a solution like Invoca to track all phone calls made from your website. Invoca automatically populates your website with dynamic tracking phone numbers. This means any time someone calls from your website, you can tie the call back to their online behavior. Be sure to use URL tracking parameters or UTM parameters to track information like:

• PPC keyword
• Ad or campaign
• Web page that drove the call
• Previous web engagement
• Customer ID

2. You can set up event tracking to track phone calls just like you do click traffic in Google Analytics. If you’re using Invoca, you can configure call data to be pushed directly inside of Google Analytics. Then you can set up a goal and event tracking for phone calls.

3. If you want to pass extra call data points to Google Analytics, you can create custom dimensions to give you a better idea of who is calling and the quality of those calls. Commonly used dimensions include:

• Call durationNew vs. repeat call
• Caller location
• Mobile vs. landline
• Keypresses

4. You can also set up qualifying filters so all phone calls are not counted as a goal completion. For example, you can set a minimum call duration so only calls that meet or exceed that duration will be counted as goals. This way you're only counting the types of calls you wants as successful conversions.

The benefits of call data don’t end with Google Analytics. Do you want to learn how you can drive more calls from paid search? Check out our PPC Optimization Checklist!