As the old saying goes, “you have to spend money to make money” — but no one said you have to spend an arm and a leg. In fact, many online advertisers using Google Ads pay more for leads than they really have to. There are many reasons for this, but most of them boil…

It’s that time again: News You Can Use! Here on the CallRail blog, we like to do periodical roundups of the latest headlines in marketing and technology, and break down what these developments might mean for your company in the short- and long-term with some tech news analysis. After all, staying on top of the…

Convincing your clients to increase their ad spend is one of the toughest conversations you can have if you work at an SEM agency. There can be multiple reasons behind your desire to increase your client’s budget. Maybe you’ve seen consistent success and are trying to ramp up their campaigns. Maybe you’re running a percentage-of-ad-spend…

Marketers that aren’t working on a million things at once just don’t exist. (And honestly, do we even want them to?) The ability to wear different hats is an admirable, sought-after trait in this competitive domain. But it can be complicated to manage multiple projects and thoroughly analyze how your work is performing. Getting the…

According to Girls Who Code, 74 percent of young girls express interest in STEM fields but only 26 percent of computing jobs are held by women. In our Women in Tech series, we dig into what motivates some of our most driven employees to lead successful tech careers. On any given day here at CallRail,…

Research what each agency offers and compare that to your needs Don’t opt for the best price, opt for the best value Determine if the agency’s work matches your industry and niche Figure out if the company is open to change and new technologies Get references and word of mouth recommendations Communicate early, openly, and…

In the fast-paced world of agency marketing, it’s easy to fixate purely on outcomes: You want to finish the campaign, fulfill the terms of your contract, and move on to the next project. But if your agency strategy doesn’t account for churn — as in, how you’re going to entice your client to renew their…

Today, virtually every marketing agency under the sun offers web design services to their small business clients. However, in an industry that can seemingly transform itself between sunrise and sunset on the same day, it can be hard for agencies to be sure they’re providing the most cutting-edge web design tools and technologies to help…

Google Ads (formerly AdWords) helps you reach new and existing customers each time they browse the web. It’s one of the top advertising tools used by marketers and provides a huge amount of value by helping you better track your ad spend and ROI. CallRail’s Google Ads integration adds more power to your campaigns by…

How many times have you sat down with a client and given them details of their marketing campaign performance, only to be met with difficult-to-answer questions about where or how you got this data? Reporting on lead generation and marketing attribution is one of the biggest parts of your job. And when you’re face-to-face with…

When it comes to focusing on lead-generation campaigns, quality and quantity matter –– but it’s by no means an easy balance. When you have a higher CPL, it’s important to factor in LTV (lifetime value) to make sure that your acquisition cost is profitable. In this post, we’ll review several simple ways you can make…

One of the biggest challenges any marketing agency will face is client retention. While it can be (relatively) easy to get leads on the hook, and even to convert those leads into paying clients for a month or two, it’s far harder to keep them on board for months or years at a time. For…

Pinpointing when, how, and why conversions are happening is an ongoing challenge for marketers. Determining which metrics to track in order to gain a deeper understanding of conversions is even more difficult. Fortunately, there’s a solution: Attribution modeling. Attribution modeling provides insights that can help you better gauge how leads are interacting with campaigns and…

User research is the process of discovering your customers’ needs, desires, frustrations, and behaviors, and then using that information to improve your product, service, or marketing. It’s the cornerstone of UX and user-centered design, but it can be difficult to gather reliable user research on a regular basis. (Not to mention knowing what to do…

Hello everyone, and welcome back to the latest edition of News You Can Use. Join us for some marketing and technology news analysis, where we review the latest headlines and happenings, and break down what it all means for your business. Because being an informed reader of the news isn’t just good civics — it’s…

Whether you’re trying to espouse your political beliefs on Facebook, showcase your night on the town on Snapchat, or accumulate clout on the Gram, social media has become a central part of our lives. The same is doubly true for advertisers and marketers, which is why measuring social media KPIs has become a critical part…

Google Sheets is a spreadsheet app that can be used to create, edit, and share spreadsheet documents — all you need is an internet connection. Why use the CallRail + Google Sheets Zap? Digital marketing is becoming an increasingly data-driven (and data-centric) line of work. Google Sheets is a way for marketers to easily organize…

A virtual phone number is a number that isn’t associated with any specific phone line, and is used to route calls to the proper receiver. These calls can then be rerouted to a phone line, app, site, or voicemail inbox. A virtual phone number works in the same way as a mall directory or guest…

CPC bidding: This once-powerful tool for search marketers has slowly been relegated to the sidelines in favor of hyper-intelligent machine learning algorithms and the power of the almighty “G”. This may sound like bit of an exaggeration, but soon enough, manually altering our bids to improve performance will be a thing of the past. You…

In 2018, businesses are accustomed to validating decisions with data –– especially budgetary decisions. This makes reporting for cost per lead (CPL) and return on ad spend (ROAS) critical for today’s marketers. Mining and surfacing this data is the name of the game. Of course, that’s easier said than done. There are high-funnel proxy marketing…

We’ve all heard the buzzwords “data-driven marketing” in just about every industry article and every presentation at a marketing event. As tools for marketing attribution data and analytics have become more sophisticated and reliable, companies have come to depend on these numbers to perfect their campaigns, determine what is and isn’t driving leads, and figure…

You know the expression, “If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?” There’s an equivalent when it comes to data presentation: “If you put compelling data into a mediocre presentation, will your clients be convinced to keep you on retainer?” When digging through…

HIPAA, which stands for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, is a US law which establishes privacy standards that protect patients’ medical records and other health information provided to health plans, doctors, hospitals and other health care providers. What is PHI? Protected Health Information (PHI) under HIPAA Privacy Rule provides federal protections…

Imagine you’re a fine art collector having framed work hung up on a wall in your home. You admire how beautiful your new abstract painting looks with your modern furniture — until the nails bend ever so slightly too much, and the entire frame comes crashing to the floor. Your art is damaged, there’s glass…

In today’s rapidly-evolving career landscape, many of us can relate to taking a job in an industry completely unrelated to our college degree. Whitney Bennett can say she not only forged a career in a field different from her educational background, she navigated uncharted waters to build a thriving human resources department where none previously…

When I was a teenager, I had to closely watch my Cingular minutes to avoid getting in trouble for overage charges. And there were many months when the cell phone bill would arrive in the mail and I would get a rebuke from my folks for spending too much time on phone calls. Back then,…

Hello there, and welcome back to your favorite recurring series on the CallRail blog: News You Can Use. We review and explain the most important marketing and tech news, and break down how they may impact the wider economy. Staying abreast of the latest headlines is crucial for businesses, no matter what industry you’re in.…

Geo-routing (geographical routing) is an algorithmic tool that routes phone calls to a set destination based on the geographical location of the caller. With geo-reouting, callers are automatically routed according to the area code provided through caller ID, by manually entering the zip code of where they are located. Benefits of Geo-routing for Franchises With more…

As a pay-per-click (PPC) expert, there’s no denying that your marketing tools are supremely important to your job. You live in powerhouse platforms like Google Ads (formerly AdWords) and are always on the hunt for the best software to juggle a near-infinite number of tasks. After all, using top-tier tools and methods is what helps…

Nearly three years ago, CallRail’s Conversation Intelligence (CI) team started a journey into uncharted territory. The challenge: Use machine learning and AI to create a tool that makes classifying the quality of a phone call completely automated, saving valuable time for our users. At CallRail, our CI team is dedicated to giving businesses of all…

No matter how well you target your PPC campaigns, poorly designed ads and landing pages can make or break their success. The steps below will help you craft a high-converting PPC campaign, from first click to conversion. Step 1: Writing a PPC ad Before you start crafting your PPC landing page, you need to make…

Most CallRail case studies begin with a little shoe-leather research on our end — we review our internal analytics, see which users and industries are the most active, and then reach out to do interviews with the most notable accounts we’ve discovered. It’s less common for a case study to come directly to us, but that’s…

Hello, and welcome back to your favorite recurring segment on the CallRail blog: News You Can Use. We break down the most important headlines, and offer some tech news analysis about how these stories could affect the economic landscape. Because staying on top of the latest news isn’t just good civics — it’s also great…

When it comes to achieving a complete understanding of the buyer’s journey, CallRail’s Dynamic Number Insertion feature is a must-have for marketers who work with call data. By installing a snippet of code on your site, you’ll gain a better understanding of the sources and channels that are driving calls to your business — unlocking…

We’re excited to announce our A/B testing integration with Optimizely, the world’s leading experimentation platform. The Optimizely X platform is a simple and powerful way to test variations of your website and its content to determine which version is driving the most conversions. With the integration we’re announcing today, CallRail users can now count phone…

Ever feel like you have loads of digital marketing data, yet struggle to do anything meaningful with it? You’re not alone: The average marketer today is tracking leads that have multiple marketing touchpoints, so it can be challenging to determine what’s working and what’s not. Analyzing user paths helps determine the typical steps taken before…

For any business to succeed, you need a great website — and great tools to analyze its success. We live in a day and age where such tools exist; however, measuring online traffic and data is only one small piece of the puzzle. Call tracking is the tool you need to get a full understanding…

Hello, and welcome back to the latest edition of News You Can Use, where we break down the most important business, marketing, and tech industry news. Following the news is important no matter what industry you’re in — by staying on top of the news, you’ll be well-positioned to capitalize on emerging trends, and to…

Advertising your business on Facebook can be a daunting prospect at first glance — the platform can quickly overwhelm new users with an abundance of tools and features. Don’t panic. Understanding the basics is all it takes to reach thousands of potential new customers. Whether you’re trying to raise brand awareness, drive more traffic to…

We obsess over creating a product that drives real value for our customers, and the CallRail development process is an integral part of this. Recently, we’ve received several questions in the CallRail Community forum about our product development process, so we’d like to break down how we make CallRail the best it can be. Requests…

As realtors, you lead small-but-mighty teams. So it makes sense that between juggling phone calls, showings, and paperwork, it’s easy for marketing to fall by the wayside despite its importance to real estate success. Ultimately, you need simple yet effective ways to market your business and keep prospects flowing. In this post, you’ll learn 10…

Real estate marketing can be a tough game to play, and no one knows that better than realtors. The path to purchase is a long and winding road, one that requires plenty of research and investigation on the buyer’s part, and loads of guidance and persistence from the agent. Payoffs can be big for dedicated…

White labeling is a legal protocol that allows one product or service to be sold and rebranded under another company’s brand. The term “white labeling” is used based on the manual process whiting out something previously written to write over again. Learn more about white labeling CallRail. Marketing pros and cons of white labeling White…

Typically, marketers care about UX design insofar as it applies to SEO. But if you ask Cliff Seal, UX Lead at Pardot, and Andrew Malcolm, CMO of Evernote, marketers can be more creative and effective when they harness design thinking. Design thinking: What it is and how it works in real life In this simplest…

Hello, and welcome back to News You Can Use, CallRail’s regular roundup of the latest and most important headlines in technology, marketing, and the wider world of business. Keeping up with the news is integral for savvy businesses in any industry — by staying on top of the latest developments in your field, you’ll be…

Marketing agencies have to use a variety of tools and platforms to understand how well their efforts are working to help their clients reach their goals. Unfortunately, these platforms are often siloed and specialize in only one facet of the buyer’s journey, muddling the reality of true performance. But you can integrate CallRail with many…

CallRail’s powerful suite of conversation intelligence tools digs deep into every call so you don’t have to. These AI-powered features are capable of transcribing every call to your business, scoring those calls, and finding the keywords you care about most. This helps to inform how you craft marketing and advertising campaigns, how you write your…

As any small business owner can tell you, the fewer vendors and moving parts you have to deal with, the better. You already have to keep track of a budget, personnel, and a near-infinite array of smaller, day-to-day business decisions. Coordinating with an external vendor is one more headache that most businesses just don’t have…

This is a guest post from Darren Shaw, the founder of Whitespark –– a local search software and services company. He has been working on the web for over 19 years and loves everything about local SEO. Darren leads research initiatives such as the annual Local Search Ranking Factors survey and the Local Search Ecosystem. He…

Round Robin is a call tracking software feature dedicated to distributing incoming calls within a set group of numbers. An incoming call forwards to the correct phone number –– the next available agent, the best agent for the call, or the correct mailbox. How does Round Robin benefit marketers using call tracking? For sales and…