CallRail vs. Invoca: Find the best tool for your needs

by

Melissa Garner
November 5, 2021

You want to get to know your customers better and create marketing campaigns that drive traffic to your site. But how can you anticipate which marketing strategies will resonate with customers the most? Marketing analysis through call tracking delivers clear, actionable insights about the ways you’re generating leads.

With so many call tracking tools on the market, it can feel like you’re searching for a needle in a haystack as you try to find the best solution for your business needs. That’s why we created this breakdown of two leaders in the industry: CallRail and Invoca. Take a look at this side-by-side comparison to find the best fit.

What to look for in a call tracking tool

Choosing a call tracking tool for your business can feel arduous. Although most call tracking tools meet basic criteria, there are a series of differentiating factors to consider:

  • Inbound and outbound call tracking/call routing features
  • Ease of setup and ease of use
  • Regulation-compliant security
  • Transparent pricing and increased ROI
  • User reviews

Each business will prioritize this list of features differently. Consider where your business experiences the most friction to determine which features make the top of your list.

1. Call tracking and other features

Inbound and outbound calling are critical to the lead generation and nurturing process. When people think about call tracking, they tend to focus on inbound call tracking, which both Invoca and CallRail provide. Companies want to know who’s calling and which marketing campaigns are driving the most leads.

But when it comes to following up with existing leads, companies also need to track those subsequent phone calls from the company to the prospective customer. CallRail does this, too, so you can track your outbound calls with ease. Speed up response times by tracking calls right from your dashboard and placing outbound calls anywhere and at any time, without disclosing a personal number.

Among the major call tracking features that CallRail offers, the most highly-rated are the following: call analytics, phone number management, agent performance management, tracking, call routing, and administration.

Category CallRail Invoca
Local Phone Numbers 90% ★ 86%
Dynamic Number Insertion 90% ★ 88%

Additionally, CallRail’s analytics add-ons, like Conversation Intelligence, can qualify leads in real-time while you speak with them, making data collection efficient and simple.

Call Tracking combined with Form Tracking, another marketing analytics tool from CallRail, allows you to see exactly which steps a lead took all the way up to submitting a form. Form Tracking also alerts you when high-value leads show interest — and helps you close them. And with Outbound Call Tracking, SMS text messaging, and chat through Lead Center, you can track all the ways you're connecting with your leads, not only via inbound phone calls.

Choose a call tracking tool with the integrations you need — including mobile optimization, data visualization, and workflow automation — but without the added clutter of unnecessary integrations.

2. Ease of setup and ease of use

If ease of use is most important to you, then CallRail has you covered. According to customer reviews on G2, CallRail reported the highest rating for ease of use and ease of setup. If you can copy and paste, you're already halfway there to installing a code snippet on your website. And you can create your first number and start tracking calls in your first couple of minutes.

Category CallRail Invoca
Ease of Use 91% ★ 86%
Ease of Setup 91% ★ 81%

"[CallRail] is also extremely easy to install, one simple line of code to your header/footer and you're ready to go." From a G2 review by Tyler W, an SMB Marketing Manager

A quick setup leads to quicker results and insights and an easy setup leads to more accurate attribution results — both important factors to consider since businesses will be navigating setup as they begin using these tools and will interact with them every day thereafter. If the system is confusing to set up, difficult to navigate, or clunky to manage once your customers are using it, they won’t experience the full benefits and could look somewhere else for a system that’s easier to manage. With CallRail, we ensure our customers are set up for success from the very beginning through dedicated success managers, extensive help articles, insightful content, and onboarding guides.

3. Regulation-compliant security

Data security is an essential consideration when building trust and rapport with your customers while also maintaining compliance with federal regulations. CallRail takes the privacy and security of its customers seriously, meeting the security protocol requirements of HIPAA, GDPR, SOC 2, PCI, and CCPA. For example, as part of our SOC 2 attestation, we ensure data is secure in transit and at rest by hosting with Amazon Web Services (AWS). Doing so increases data security which can directly impact product uptime.

Category CallRail Invoca
Meets Requirements 91% ★ 87%

4. Pricing and ROI

Comparing costs for your call tracking tool is two-fold. On one hand, you’re looking for an affordable solution with comprehensive features, such as multi-channel lead attribution, visitor tracking, and call log activities. On the other hand, you want a tool that will satisfy competitive return on investment (ROI) objectives and increase average ROI over time.

Product pricing fluctuates over time. The key is to find call tracking tools that are transparent about pricing and understand that the numbers will change. Companies that are not open with their pricing create an extra step for the buyer, who must compare several call tracking tools and dig for hard numbers.

CallRail is transparent about pricing based on the needs of each company. While Invoca requires annual contracts, CallRail offers month-to-month plans.

Take a look at CallRail’s most up-to-date pricing information for a breakdown of what is included, such as local numbers, SMS text messages, local minutes, form submissions, and transcription minutes.

The second prong of pricing is ROI. According to the same G2 report referenced above, CallRail users achieved ROI in an average of 7 months, as compared to 10 months for Invoca users.

Category CallRail Invoca
Average ROI (months) 7 months ★ 10 months

5. What users say

Call tracking tools promote their top features and tout their usability. However, the users themselves illustrate a fuller picture of a tool’s capabilities and potential pitfalls.

After using CallRail, customers provided the following insights:

On data capture:

“I like how easy it is to use the platform and to pull data reports. The recorded call feature is my favorite, though.”

On advertising:

“I am able to track the performance of all online advertising in one spot and report it accurately to the client so they can see their ad spend. Whether the traffic is coming from Facebook, or Google Ads, or organic searches on search engines, we know that for each call. This has allowed us to keep track of our online advertising expenses more closely and to understand what is working and what is not working.”

On user experience:

“CallRail has a very clean and easy-to-navigate dashboard. Integrating it into a WordPress website is as easy as installing a plugin.”

On transparent tracking:

“CallRail has been an invaluable resource for myself and our clients. It provides transparent tracking and a wealth of data about client's customers, which enables us to make better decisions with their media dollars.”

On usage:

“It's a great tool that goes beyond just call analytics and can as well be used for optimizing campaigns and user experiences.”

Invoca users championed customer support and call data analytics that can be used to optimize campaign efforts and future user experiences. However, Invoca users struggled with application programming interface (API) glitches that made tasks like extracting data from Excel spreadsheets difficult, with reports of some inaccuracies.

The bottom line

In the comparison of CallRail vs. Invoca, there is a clear frontrunner. CallRail boasts all of the call tracking features — both inbound and outbound — that customers rely on for efficiency and productivity. The CallRail Lead Center offers a one-stop shop for managing and streamlining communication with your leads. CallRail excels at protecting its users’ data and security. And the cherry on top? CallRail’s pricing can’t be beat.

Interested in learning more about how CallRail can help you manage and track your leads? Take CallRail for a test drive! Register for a 14-day free trial today.

You can also sign up to receive a demo of CallRail if you would like to have your questions answered by one of our representatives and see how our features can best help your business.