5 essential call tracking metrics

Michael Morrell

Written by Michael Morrell

Category: Data and analytics

Phone calls remain a cornerstone of consumer communication across all generations. According to a 2023 McKinsey & Company survey, 71% of Generation Z (ages 18 – 28), 81% of Millennials (29 – 43), 86% of Generation X (44 – 58), and a staggering 94% of Baby Boomers (59+) would still choose a phone conversation when they need assistance.

This highlights a critical point for marketers: tracking and measuring the performance of phone calls isn’t just a nice-to-have – it’s essential for understanding the real ROI of your lead generation efforts.

With endless streams of data to analyse, marketers today face a paradox: there’s so much to measure, yet only so many hours in the day. To make the most of your time, you need to focus on the metrics that truly matter, especially when it comes to campaign analytics and reporting.

So, it got me thinking: if we could only prioritise five call tracking metrics, which ones would deliver the biggest impact?

1. Source call volumes

Understanding which sources drive telephone calls is one of the most important steps you can take toward optimising your marketing efforts. By identifying exactly where your calls are coming from, you can make smarter strategic decisions and allocate your budget to the channels that deliver the greatest impact.

The good news? Tracking call sources is easier than you might think – thanks to dynamic phone numbers.

With dynamic phone numbers on your website, you can monitor visitor behaviour in real-time. This means you’ll know not only how visitors landed on your website but also the exact moment they decided to call you. For example, you can track a visitor who clicked on a pay-per-click (PPC) ad, follow their journey through your site, and pinpoint when they convert into a phone lead.

Call sources.

Compared to static numbers, dynamic phone numbers offer clear advantages:

  • Precise source attribution: See exactly which sources – whether PPC ads, organic search, or social campaigns – are driving the most calls. This insight allows you to adjust your marketing strategy and spend with confidence.
  • Campaign-level performance tracking: Evaluate and compare the performance of individual campaigns, even when they feature similar messaging, to identify which ones resonate most with your audience.

If you look at the column labelled ‘VCR’ (visitor-to-call ratio) in the example above, you’ll see how this data comes to life. We’ll dive deeper into VCR later as we explore why it’s a must-track metric for understanding visitor engagement and intent.

By leveraging dynamic phone numbers and tools like VCR, you’ll gain a complete view of your campaign performance and uncover hidden opportunities to drive even more high-quality leads.

2. Keyword performance

You – or your paid search agency – invest significant time and resources into fine-tuning your keyword strategy to create a high-performing channel. But are you fully measuring its impact?

One of the simplest ways to maximise PPC success is by attributing phone calls to specific keywords. This not only gives you a clear view of how your regular business-as-usual search terms are performing, but it also helps you uncover new, high-performing keywords – potentially before your competitors catch on.

Another powerful tool for identifying untapped keyword opportunities is Speech Analytics. By analysing phone conversations, you can discover the exact words and phrases customers use to describe their challenges and the solutions they’re searching for. These insights can inform your keyword strategy, aligning it more closely with your customers’ real-world needs and language.

Speech Analytics analyses your phone conversations to help you discover the exact words and phrases customers use to describe their challenges and the solutions they’re searching for. The insights that are revealed can be used to inform your keyword strategy, so it aligns more closely with your customers’ real-world needs and language.

But what happens if your keywords don’t seem to be delivering results? Take, for example, a high-cost keyword that doesn’t appear to be generating leads in your reporting. In reality, that keyword might be driving phone calls that aren’t being attributed to it. This oversight can lead to incorrect assumptions about keyword performance and potentially costly missteps in budget allocation.

By tracking phone calls against keywords, you gain far greater accuracy in your paid search reports. You’ll not only see which keywords are driving call leads but also identify those that are delivering high-value, conversion-ready prospects. This level of insight empowers you to optimise your paid search campaigns with confidence, ensuring that every pound spent on keywords delivers measurable value.

3. Landing page effectiveness

Call to action tracking using website call trackingLanding page effectiveness is one of the most critical call tracking metrics – yet it’s often overlooked.

Think about the effort that goes into launching campaigns and optimising landing pages. You may even run A/B tests to fine-tune layouts, content, and design to maximise performance.

But what if you’re missing a key piece of the puzzle? Tracking phone calls generated by your landing pages – often one of their primary goals – is frequently forgotten.

The result? Campaigns that actually drive a significant number of phone leads risk being written off as failures, simply because those conversions aren’t being measured.

Faye Thomassen, our Head of Marketing, explains: “With over 70% of customers preferring to pick up the phone, relying solely on online conversion data paints an incomplete picture of the success of your campaigns. By tracking your phone leads, you can uncover the true impact of your landing pages and ensure you’re not leaving valuable insights (or revenue) on the table.”

“With over 70% of customers preferring to pick up the phone, relying solely on online conversion data paints an incomplete picture of the success of your campaigns. By tracking your phone leads, you can uncover the true impact of your landing pages and ensure you’re not leaving valuable insights (or revenue) on the table.” Faye Thomassen, Head of Marketing, Mediahawk

4. Visitor to call ratio (VCR)

We’ve all looked at website acquisition reports in Google Analytics, and seen drops in traffic, users, and lead numbers. It’s easy to think that this means there’s either a big problem there and throw more money at it – or that there’s no value in that channel, so you dismiss it as an effective lead generating source and divert your budget away from it.

But without the right metrics, you could be missing out on one of your most valuable revenue generating sources.

The visitor to call (VCR) ratio shows the number of visitors to a website versus the number of phone calls generated by the website. This is an incredibly useful for measuring visitor engagement and intent. It identifies the marketing sources responsible for delivering your high-intent, high-value phone leads. And it also allows you to separate these sources from those that purely generate a lot of visitor volume.

Let’s take PPC as an example. You notice a drop in traffic and leads coming from your PPC campaigns. At first glance, this might seem like your PPC efforts aren’t delivering value, leading you to consider either increasing spend to fix the issue, or cutting PPC altogether to reallocate your budget elsewhere.

However, by measuring the VCR, you might uncover a different story. Suppose your PPC traffic volume is lower than before, but the VCR reveals that a significant percentage of the visitors it brings are making high-value phone calls to your business. This indicates that while the overall traffic has declined, the quality of leads has improved – your ads are attracting visitors who are more engaged and have a stronger intent to convert.

Without tracking this metric, you might dismiss PPC as ineffective based solely on traffic and lead count, potentially losing out on a valuable source of revenue-driving leads. VCR helps you recognise PPC as a channel that, while perhaps lower in volume, delivers high-intent calls that significantly impact your bottom line.

Without tracking the VCR, you might dismiss a particular marketing source as ineffective based solely on traffic and lead count, potentially losing out on a valuable source of revenue-driving leads. VCR helps you recognise that certain channels, while perhaps lower in traffic volume, deliver high-intent calls that significantly impact your bottom line.

5. Revenue generated from phone calls by source

How often do we ask ourselves: “How many calls did we receive, and how much revenue did those calls generate?” The good news is that the right tools makes calculating this easier than you think.

Using Sales Matching you can link your phone enquiries and sales directly to your marketing efforts. You can attribute phone calls to specific campaigns, ads, or even individual keywords in your customer relationship management (CRM) system or lead capture platform – whether that’s a robust system like Salesforce or a straightforward spreadsheet.

As each lead progresses through your sales pipeline and is marked as ‘closed,’ you’ll gain visibility into the revenue generated by each channel. This includes phone enquiries, which often represent some of the highest-intent leads.

Mediahawk Sales Matching feature.

By integrating phone call data into your reporting, you’re not just tracking calls – you’re uncovering the true return on investment (ROI) of your marketing efforts and identifying the campaigns and channels that drive the most revenue. Without this insight, you could be overlooking your most profitable lead sources.

Bringing it together

Having a single dashboard to track your core metrics makes managing your campaigns far simpler and far more effective. A well-designed dashboard should be more than just functional – it should turn reporting into an engaging, insightful, and even enjoyable part of your day, rather than a frustrating chore you dread.

In Mediahawk, setting up dashboards is a breeze, thanks to seamless integrations with many of the most popular marketing tools. You can effortlessly select the metrics that matter most to your business and display them in a format that’s clear and actionable. Want to save even more time? Automate your reporting by scheduling recurring email summaries, so detailed campaign insights land directly in your inbox exactly when you need them.

Conclusion

We get it – there are only so many hours in the day, and it’s impossible to track every single key performance indicator (KPI). That’s why focusing on the right metrics is so important. The ideas we’ve shared here are designed to help you zero in on the data that truly matters, so you can optimise your marketing campaigns and uncover the real impact of your telephone leads.

By leveraging the right tools and focusing on the most valuable insights, you’ll transform your reporting process from a time-consuming task into a powerful driver of growth and strategic decision-making. So go ahead, take control of your data, and start making every lead count!

This article was first published in April 2020, and updated in December 2024.

Graphic representing call tracking software
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Michael Morrell

Written by

Michael Morrell

CEO

Michael is the CEO of Mediahawk, and a leading authority in marketing and telephone analytics. With over 20 years of experience, he has helped businesses leverage call tracking and marketing analytics to boost revenue through improved lead capture, tracking, and attribution.

See all posts from Michael Morrell

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