Proving marketing ROI: How George Davies Turf track the tactics driving sales calls

We caught up with George Davies of George Davies Turf to discuss the company’s experience using Mediahawk call tracking and how it has helped them understand and improve their marketing performance.

Mediahawk (MH): Tell us about George Davies Turf.

George Davies (GD): “George Davies Turf is the UK’s leading lawn turf supplier. Each year, we supply over 35,000 gardens with premium landscaping materials. With over 20 years of industry experience, we’re well known for the quality of our turf and our exceptional, award-winning customer service.”

The challenge: Understanding where 95% of their business comes from

MH: What marketing challenges was George Davies Turf facing?

GD: “We needed to understand where our sales were coming from. Knowing what marketing channels and activities generate the best return on investment (ROI) was key. With varied campaigns across many channels and platforms, we wanted to make sure our marketing budget was being spent as effectively and efficiently as possible.”

MH: How important are phone calls to your business?

GD: “Phone calls are so important to the business. 95% of our business comes through calls. The customer service element is crucial for us. We prefer to talk to our customers on the phone because we feel that we can do a better job over the phone as opposed to online. We can have good conversations, get engaged, and ask customers the right questions so we can look after them.”

The solution: An industry-leading call tracking and attribution platform

MH: Why did you decide to implement call tracking?

GD: “The only way to really see where our calls are coming from is with Mediahawk call tracking. I was actually an early adopter of call tracking, starting way back in 2013. I was paying for ads in the Yellow Pages back then and needed to figure out which were actually worthwhile. The main driver for us using Mediahawk is to make sure we know exactly where our revenue is coming from. Once you know that a channel is working and you can see the returns on that channel, you can increase your spend, no problem at all.”

MH: Why did you choose Mediahawk as your call tracking provider?

GD: “We had previously worked with another call tracking provider, but didn’t feel that they were meeting our needs in terms of their technical abilities, being able to understand the data, and drilling down into the details of our marketing performance. We wanted a provider who is technically capable, and is as invested in improving the performance of our marketing activity and efficiency of our budget as we are. And we found that with Mediahawk.”

MH: What Mediahawk solutions are you using?

GD: “We use a mix of static and dynamic numbers to track performance across all our online and offline channels, like our website, Google Ads, and Facebook. Mediahawk’s Client Services and Development teams were really helpful; they worked with us to implement the API to automatically push information into our Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM system. We also use Mediahawk’s integration into Power BI to pull marketing analytics and our business data together into powerful reports. We also use Sales Matching which is how we accurately link the revenue data.”

MH: How do you use the data collected by Mediahawk?

GD: “We pass through customer phone numbers, marketing source information, and revenue into our systems. Those are key pieces of information for us: They let me clearly see which marketing channels and activities are driving our lead generation, and I can accurately link our revenue to the exact marketing source it came from.

By bringing that data into Power BI with our business data, we can see the specific channel and campaign, the revenue generated, and crucially, the ROI on those activities. We can see the value of each call and where it originated. This end-to-end attribution is absolutely critical for us to get right. We can see if calls are coming from social media, PPC, or SEO. We can even see live data on domestic margin, cash trade margin, and new margin, broken down by source ”

The results: Improved ROI, more robust reporting, better customer service

MH: What key results or benefits have you seen since implementing Mediahawk?

GD: “Mediahawk has given me the confidence to know we’re investing our marketing budget in the right places to deliver a better ROI. Once we see a channel is working and providing returns, we can confidently increase our spend on it. Using Mediahawk to log and track calls and send the data to Dynamics 365 saves us time. Doing that manually would be impossible. The time saved means we can dedicate additional time to customer service. Ultimately, Mediahawk provides the visibility to see where we’re getting a return on our investment. I’m genuinely really pleased with where we are and what we’re doing with Mediahawk.

MH: How has Mediahawk helped you with your Performance Max campaigns?

GD: “Mediahawk helps us see the breakdown of performance across the various channels within Performance Max, like YouTube or other networks, which helps us optimise those ads effectively.”

MH: How does knowing the source of calls and revenue impact your decision-making on marketing spend?

GD: “Having that accurate data gives us the confidence to increase our spend on a channel once we see it’s working and providing a return. When you think what you’re doing is working, it can be really quite unsettling, unnerving, and quite scary to increase your spend. But to have the level of data we’ve got now to be able to say, ‘yes, we’re on the right track’, is perfect.”

MH: What are your plans for the future with Mediahawk?

GD: “I’m looking forward to exploring a lot more and doing a lot more with it, that would be fantastic – especially now that Qoob, our web partner, is working closely with Mediahawk. We hope to add more tangible data and results in the future. We’re trying to increase our online presence and will be investing more in moving things in that direction over time. We’re very mindful that we can’t just stick to what we know – the old way of doing things – because if we do, we’ll get left behind. We aim to use all the tools available to maximise resources and results.”

Conclusion

Mediahawk call tracking and marketing analytics has given George and his team the ability to make reliable data-driven decisions on their marketing spend, saving valuable time in the process. This allows George Davies Turf to dedicate more time to doing what they do best – supplying high quality turf and keeping their customers happy.