
by Stephanie Ohlemacher Nov 20, 2019
How to create a marketing dashboard for executives
This is a guest post from our friends at Wonderist Agency in San Diego. Wonderist is a dental marketing agency focused on helping practices increase new patient numbers and implement cohesive dental marketing strategies. As an executive, having your finger on the pulse of your business’s marketing is imperative. Knowing how your customers are finding…

by Karissa Austin Nov 18, 2019
SearchLab delivers optimized campaigns, full-spectrum reporting with CallRail and WordStream
Chicago-based SEM agency SearchLab works with a variety of fast-growing clients. With clients across the country and just over two years in business, the group has already earned awards from Clutch (2018 and 2019) and was listed among the top digital agencies by Built in Chicago earlier this year. Unlike most agencies, however, SearchLab operates…

by Ryan Garrow Nov 11, 2019
How agencies can prove positive marketing ROI to clients
This is a guest post by our friends at Logical Position, a Portland-based digital marketing agency. There’s a famous saying in the advertising world from marketing pioneer John Wanamaker: “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” It has always been important to prove to your…

by Adam Arkfeld Oct 18, 2019
How to guarantee shareholders understand your ROI
This guest post was written by our friends at Edison21, a digital marketing agency that specializes in PPC advertising and reporting for Shopify store owners. ROI (return on investment) is a surprisingly tricky metric to track and communicate in your digital marketing campaign. Proper ROI reporting shows if a digital campaign is working and a…

by Anthony Krolczyk Sep 10, 2019
5 pro tips for cross-channel call attribution
This is a guest post by Anthony Krolczyk, Brand Director at LumenAd. As one of CallRail’s Agency Partners, LumenAd specializes in organizing CallRail conversion data for a holistic view of all digital investments. Built within a proven framework for unifying programmatic, direct, search and social data, LumenAd consolidates all your advertising functions into one intuitive…

by Andrew Astleford Sep 3, 2019
An in-depth look at CallRail’s reporting features
Organizing your call analytics in an impactful way that’s also easy to understand is an extensive undertaking even for seasoned marketers. When reporting on lead generation and marketing attribution for your business or a client, the breadth and depth of information at your fingertips can be overwhelming. Still, understanding the full picture of a campaign’s…

by Ben Hicks Jul 12, 2019
How to analyze your data to improve engagement on your website
We all know that Google Analytics (GA) is the data analytics tool most commonly used to analyze marketing performance and guide overall strategy. And there’s a reason it’s such a popular tool: The data you get is invaluable. But when it comes to improving user experience, looking at data from GA doesn’t tell the full…

by Nick Jackson Jun 28, 2019
How to calculate automotive marketing ROI for your dealership
According to 2017 data collected by the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA), dealerships across the United States are spending over 55 percent of their advertising budget on internet ads. (This figure works out to an average monthly ad spend of $26,750 per month.) And this research tracks with another study of over 300 dealerships, which…

by Melissa Garner Apr 12, 2019
Improve client retention with multi-touch attribution
Video Transcription: [Greg] People bounced between the desktop, their smartphones, stores, and back and forth. And so tracking all of that activity is really challenging. Next slide, please. So once upon a time, we had a handful of traditional media. They were fairly straightforward, easy to buy, creative was pretty straightforward in most cases. And…

by Zack Bedingfield Feb 6, 2019
PPC reporting: The key metrics you need in every report
Your typical pay-per-click marketer is a Jack- (or Jill-) of-all-trades, experts in efficiently managing budgets and serving hyper-relevant ads, but also adept at client management, data analytics and, of course, reporting. Without the ability to produce concise, meaningful PPC reports, all of our work is for naught. Going from PPC campaign creation to bid, to clicks…

by Michael Saba Jan 17, 2019
How to calculate ROI for campaigns, agency work, and everything in between
Just as there are many different forms of marketing — agency marketing, campaign marketing, referral / relationship marketing — there’s an equally diverse range of methods for calculating ROI on those initiatives. Depending on the size and scope of the specific campaign (or the wider time period you’re measuring), ROI calculation can require anything from…

by Karissa Austin Jan 15, 2019
How to make your agency indispensable with data-driven marketing
It’s 2019, and digital marketing isn’t all that groundbreaking anymore — especially for agencies. The industry has advanced to a point where if you aren’t doing some kind of digital marketing, you’re falling behind the times (and your competitors). But simply offering digital marketing services doesn’t cut it either. There are hundreds upon hundreds of…

by Jules Tompkins Dec 10, 2018
How to help your clients focus on the marketing metrics that really matter
There’s a debate in the baseball world around one very conventional statistic: Pitcher wins and losses. For decades, both fans and team executives have looked to this metric as a key indicator of a pitcher’s value. And while most have all but abandoned pitcher wins as any kind of meaningful indicator of pitching performance, it…

by Zack Bedingfield Dec 7, 2018
Client reporting 101
Introduction [Anna] All right. So, again, thank you, everyone, for your patience. We’re really excited for today’s webinar. And it’s going to focus primarily on client reporting, so proving the effectiveness of your marketing for your clients, or maybe you work at an agency, maybe you have some in-house responsibilities, like a RPPC manager. And…

by Sean Thomas Martin Sep 10, 2018
5 simple ways agencies can convince their clients to increase ad spend
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…

by Dedra Mitchell Sep 10, 2018
CAC and CPL 101: Why these metrics matter to agency clients
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…

by Michael Saba Sep 6, 2018
Data and analytics: The cure for agency client churn
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…

by Karissa Austin Aug 14, 2018
10 data presentation tips to prove value to your clients
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…

by Karissa Austin Aug 9, 2018
How to turn vanity metrics into actionable metrics
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…

by Nick Jackson Jun 19, 2018
5 CallRail integrations that marketing agencies are using to prove ROI, retain clients, and hone marketing
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…

by Adam Carbonneau May 21, 2018
Convince your clients that call tracking is worth it: Tips for data-driven marketing agencies from a data-driven marketing agency
This is a guest post by Adam Carbonneau, a digital marketing manager at Whitehardt. Adam oversees the organic online efforts of Whitehardt’s law firm clients. Radio spots, television commercials, websites, landing pages, print copy, PPC campaigns… You have all the options for advertising that your clients could want or dream of, yet, how can your clients…

by Madelyn Newman Apr 18, 2018
HIPAA call tracking checklist: Best practices for maintaining compliance
From appointment scheduling to patient education, billing, referrals, and prescription refills, tons of doctor-to-patient communication happens over the phone. These phone calls are protected under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and if you’re a healthcare provider or an agency that services one, you need to ensure you’re keeping this data secure. You…

by Michael Saba Apr 9, 2018
How CallRail and Digible helped a client cut CPL by 33%
Real estate marketing for rental properties can be similar to working with a franchise. You’ll serve many individual businesses who have similar strategic goals, yet also have their own unique quirks owing to geography, demographics, and the management style of their owner-operators. Digible is a Denver-based digital marketing agency specializing in advertising campaigns for multi-family…

by Anna Niles Feb 27, 2018
Why call data looks different in CallRail, Google Analytics, and Google Ads
When it comes to call tracking reporting, one challenge a lot of marketers face is making sense of the discrepancies between call data, and related data within Google Analytics (GA) and Google Ads( formerly AdWords.) Sure, analyzing mismatched data can be daunting, but have no fear! We’ve broken it down for you so you can…

by Michael Saba Feb 26, 2018
Conversion tracking differences between Microsoft Ads and Google Ads
When it comes to paid search, conversion tracking is the most important metric you’ll measure. Keeping tabs on the effectiveness of your ad buys will help you determine the kinds of content and keywords that are delivering the best ROI, so you can fine-tune your efforts and maximize your returns. But there are many different…

by Kate McGaughey Jan 2, 2018
How to Track Your Social Media ROI
Determining the return on investment (ROI) of your social media marketing efforts can seem like a daunting task. The internet is full of how-to guides and best practices promising results, but at the end of the day, how are you going to justify the time and money you’ve spent on social media marketing and reconcile…

by Madelyn Newman Nov 20, 2017
How to Create a Phone Call Dashboard in Google Analytics or Google Data Studio
What are Phone Call Dashboards for Google Analytics and Google Data Studio? Phone call dashboards for Google Analytics and Google Data Studio help you see the call data associated with your marketing campaigns in real-time. This includes metrics such as the marketing source, the paid keywords used in search, the duration of the phone call,…

by Amber Guidry Jun 1, 2017
Track Your Trade Show Marketing ROI
Should you include trade show sponsorships in your budget? In short, yes. But how do you know if your investment was worth it? Managing your marketing dollars is already a challenge in itself, and the last thing you want to do is question whether those dollars were spent on the right trade show tactics. Among…

by Janaye McGrew Nov 23, 2016
How to measure ROI with call tracking
Track ROI with call tracking and analytics Return on investment, or ROI, is used to measure success over time and helps steer future business decisions. ROI is especially important when it comes to marketing. Your marketing ROI illuminates which marketing channels you should be spending money on and the tools that are worth investing in.…