Here at Amplitude, Agency Partner, Jeff Ferguson, recently enjoyed an insightful, compelling conversation about call tracking and conversation analytics with McKay Allen, Inbound Marketing Manager of LogMyCalls. McKay’s expertise has been featured in popular publications such as Search Engine Journal, Mobile Marketer, Search Engine Watch, Direct Marketing News, 1to1 Media, and SES Magazine.
Jeff Ferguson: Just what is call tracking? And how does it work?
McKay Allen: SMBs, agencies, and enterprise-level companies all use call tracking to determine which ads, keywords, and campaigns generate phone calls. Call tracking can tell marketers how many calls their PPC ads generate, their SEO efforts produce, and their direct mail efforts push (to name a few).
Call tracking allows marketers to close the loop on their marketing spend. Call tracking works by displaying unique local or toll-free phone numbers, dependent on the online referring source, campaign, keyword, or offline marketing channel. This allows LogMyCalls to track which phone numbers – and thus which campaigns – are producing phone calls.
Jeff Ferguson: Are phone calls really a big deal?
McKay Allen: Yes. Absolutely. Google said just last month that 70% of local mobile searches result in a phone call. There are over 30 BILLION calls made each year to businesses in North America. That’s substantial.
In fact, it takes FOUR web leads to produce the revenue produced by only ONE phone call.
Jeff Ferguson: So, you provide call tracking, but you also argue it doesn’t usually go far enough?
McKay Allen: There are about a half dozen serious call tracking companies. LogMyCalls is one of them. Each of these companies has strengths and weaknesses and, contrary to what our sales team might have told you, there aren’t really that many differences between us and our competitors.
Call tracking analyzes what happens before the phone rings. But there’s a lot that happens after the phone rings….like, really important things. Gartner Research says there are 420 billion words spoken on business phone calls every day. That’s a lot of data that isn’t being analyzed.
That’s why LogMyCalls launched Conversation Analytics, to analyze that data.
Jeff Ferguson: What exactly is Conversation Analytics?
McKay Allen: After 15 months of development, we launched Conversation Analytics in early October. It is the most substantial development in call tracking in 15 years.
Jeff Ferguson: Interesting. And very cool. Just how does Conversation Analytics conduct this analysis?
McKay Allen: Conversation Analytics actually ‘listens’ to each call, using sophisticated speech recognition technology to do so. Each call is then passed through hundreds of simultaneously running algorithms. These algorithms are looking for specific phrases, words, intonations, speech rate and context. These algorithms are asking thousands of tiny questions about each call, for example:
Obviously these questions will vary depending on the specific things our clients want to measure and their individual industries, but you get the idea.
Jeff Ferguson: So, what types of things can Conversation Analytics track?
McKay Allen: Conversation Analytics can extract data like lead score, sales readiness, missed opportunities, agitation level, cancellations, complaints, compliments, politeness, repeat inquiries, appointments sets, purchase language and DOZENS of other things.
For example, if the caller said, “I need auto insurance this week,” that would be a good indicator of a high-quality lead. Conversation Analytics would ‘hear’ those words, and produce a high lead score.
Jeff Ferguson: What are the real-world benefits of Conversation Analytics for one’s business?
McKay Allen: Here are just a couple of ways you can make more money with Conversation Analytics.
You can view a helpful slide deck and whitepaper about Conversation Analytics and its many benefits to your business.
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