The Best Conversion Actions to Track

What are the most valuable conversion actions on your website? Calls, forms, and chats are generally the most popular conversion methods. You might even have all three available as an option for leads to engage with you on your website. If you can track individual leads back to the conversion action they took, you can identify your most profitable conversion actions. 

How does knowing your most profitable conversion actions help your business?‍

First, it allows you to make your most profitable conversion actions highly visible.‍

Whether it’s calls, forms, or chats, your most valuable conversion action should be prominently displayed.‍

Second, it identifies marketing channels that drive the most high-value conversions. ‍

Let’s say your best leads come in via phone calls. This is great information, but it’s only actionable if you can track every phone call lead back to the marketing source responsible. 

Many marketers have used marketing attribution and lead tracking software to conclude that phone calls are the most valuable conversion action. Here are four statistics illustrating the power of phone calls. 

1. Phone call leads turn into sales 10x more often than form-fill or chat leads

That means marketing channels that drive phone calls should drive higher sales than marketing channels that drive other conversion actions.

2. Phone calls end up converting to sales 30% faster than leads that came in through other contact methods

When someone fills out a form, they have to wait for you to get in touch with them. When someone contacts you via chat, they may not be looking to buy immediately, but rather get more information or even seek support. People who call, however, are ready to buy and buy quickly.

3. Phone call leads spend 28% more than leads who get in touch via form-fills and chats

This statistic could be explained by how easy it is to upsell customers who call into the company. When someone calls your company ready to buy, salespeople can work their magic and entice the customer to spend more than they originally intended to.

4. 61% of customers call a business when they’re in the purchase stage of the buying cycle

Form-fills and chats are great conversion actions for the top of the sales funnel. When it comes time to complete sales and deliver hot leads, however, phone calls are your most valuable conversion action. 

If you can track which marketing channels drive phone calls, you can double down on the marketing responsible for these valuable conversion actions. 

How does lead tracking impact marketing spend?

Imagine that you’re launching three PPC campaigns targeting three different keywords. 

After a few weeks, you look at the results using a lead tracking tool like WhatConverts.

The PPC ad targeting Keyword 1 generated 20 phone call conversions. The PPC ad targeting Keyword 2 generated 18 chat conversions. Keyword 3 didn’t generate very many leads at all. It seems like two of the three campaigns are working. 

Now it’s time to launch a new round of campaigns and you have some questions about your PPC performance. 

• How should you shift marketing spend based on the conversions?
• Which keyword is generating the best leads?
• Which keyword is generating the most valuable leads?
• Will you get high quality leads if you spend more on one of the keywords?
  

You can only answer these questions if you have the right data. A tool like Google Analytics can tell you the number of leads each keyword generated, and whether they used chats, form-fills, or phone calls to convert. That’s about it. 

Advanced lead tracking software like WhatConverts can go deeper than Google Analytics. Lead tracking software can show you the individual form-fills and phone call transcripts tied to each lead. It can tell you how many of the form-fill leads were qualified leads and compare that to the number of qualified leads that came in via phone call. 

You might find that one keyword delivered a lot of form-fill and chat leads that were solicitations, spam, support tickets, and otherwise unqualified leads. If you’re using chat on your website, you might find that many of these chat conversions end up being existing customers looking for support. 

Next, you go look at the individual leads from the keyword that delivered 20 phone calls. You find that most of these phone calls were sales-ready customers who were qualified and ready to buy. They’re strong, quotable, high-value leads. Studies from Google have proven that phone calls are extremely valuable, as shown in the image below.

Once you’ve discovered that phone call leads are more valuable than form-fill and chat leads, you can start doubling down on marketing channels that deliver high-value phone call leads. 

Basic conversion tracking tools can tell you about lead quantity. You’ll know the number of phone calls, the number of form-fills, and the number of chats from each marketing channel.

Advanced marketing attribution tools can tell you about lead quality. You’ll be able to look past the numbers to see which marketing campaigns are delivering your most valuable, sales-ready leads. 

The impact of tracking individual phone call leads

Here’s an example of how seeing customer journeys and call transcripts for individual leads can help identify your best marketing campaigns. 

A resort in Texas ran a PPC campaign targeting keywords related to golf. This resort has a golf course and a hotel on the property. When the campaign ended, the team took a look at the reports. There were very few hotel rooms booked as a result of this ad. There was a form on the website to fill out to book a room, but nobody who saw the ad was filling out the form. 

Instead of canceling the campaign, the team looked at phone call conversions. A lot of people were calling the hotel, though that is not how people generally book rooms. Calling is, however, the only way to book tee times on the golf course. 

Looking at the call data revealed that people were clicking the ad, calling the phone number, and scheduling tee times, then booking a room once they had secured a tee time. High-value leads were coming in via phone call and the ad was, in fact, successful.

The importance of tracking and answering calls

Now that you understand how valuable phone calls are in the purchase process, you can prioritize marketing channels that deliver leads via phone calls. With phone calls being so valuable, it’s also important to make sure you’re able to answer every call. A tool like Smith.ai ensures every call is answered right away, so you never miss capturing a valuable lead.

Integrating WhatConverts with Smith.ai allows you to track every one of these answered phone calls back to the marketing source. If you’re interested in trying WhatConverts, click here for a link to a free 30-day trial, exclusively for Smith.ai customers.