Previous call tracking solution lacked scalability and data granularity
- 11 locations in 4 states
- 13,750 call average
- 77 phone numbers
Integrations:
As a top-rated SEO and digital marketing agency in Cleveland, Ohio, Sixth City Marketing is data-driven and results-oriented. Always on the lookout for better ways to track and report their marketing performance to clients and provide greater ROI, about five years ago Sixth City decided to start tracking lead sources from phone calls and website form submissions for their clients. This is when Sixth City first discovered CallRail, which Steve DiMatteo, the senior SEO strategist at Sixth City, describes as a “match made in heaven,” because of CallRail’s scalability and affordability.
This ability to scale has been paramount to Sixth City’s own growth into a larger agency servicing more clients and bigger accounts. Today, Sixth City services all types of clients – from B2B to B2C and everything from small, local single-location businesses to large multi-location and multi-state businesses.
While Sixth City likes to onboard clients with CallRail, occasionally new clients already have a legacy call tracking vendor in place. This was the case when Pet Palace, a multi-location pet boarding resort, started working with Sixth City. “The call tracking provider was one we had worked with in the past on a much smaller scale,” recalls DiMatteo, “but we’d never worked with it on this level before, and we just weren’t able to get what we wanted from the other provider in terms of accurate data and analytics.”
Sixth City was looking for more granularity in how they could parse and report data to their client. They also couldn’t get the data to sync with Google Analytics and other Google properties like Google My Business. “We really put in our best effort over a year and a half,” says DiMatteo, who notes that with 11 locations, 77 phone numbers and an average of over 13,000 calls per month during the busy season, Sixth City couldn’t sync all of that data and thus was lacking in providing a comprehensive data story to its client.
Sixth City knew they needed to make a switch, and CallRail was their vendor of choice. But first, they had to convince Pet Palace that the ROI of making the switch was worth it and that implementing CallRail would be easy. “We really had to make the case that they were going to get better reporting data,” says DiMatteo.
Seamless integration with Google makes implementation a breeze
A key reason Sixth City loves using CallRail is because it’s so seamless to implement and integrate. It also has the ability to scale to support multi-location functionality, which is necessary to support Pet Palace’s 11 locations.
“One of the things that really separates CallRail that we like is the ability to integrate all the Google platforms together—Google Ads, Google Analytics 4, and Google Business Profiles. It could not be easier. We had no issues whatsoever and the data started populating right away.” –Steve DiMatteo, the senior SEO strategist at Sixth City.
Sixth City also loves how user-friendly CallRail’s report functionality is and how it helps them support a multi-location strategy, where there are multiple managers at every location. With CallRail, Sixth City can set up weekly reports and send them to the appropriate managers at each location.
CallRail also allows Sixth City to provide more transparent and granular data to Pet Palace. They can provide a breakdown of the calls that have come into a specific location with the ability to separate first-time callers from repeat callers.
“So what we’re able to do from a reporting standpoint is say, ‘here are all the first-time calls to either the website or the Google Business Profile or from the paid campaign,’ and that gives us a more accurate look at the true volume of leads that are coming in,” says DiMatteo.
CallRail also makes it much easier to understand what the cost per lead is in paid ad campaigns as well as optimize campaigns based on the data. This gives Sixth City much more granular and helpful data that allows their paid team to go in and optimize Pet Palace’s ad campaigns by bidding up the keywords that are converting.
“We’re able to look at the data, talk about it, and be very transparent with our clients and help them understand to the best of our ability what’s the true quantity of leads they’re getting without just giving them some raw number without an explanation,” says DiMatteo.
Detailed call insights help reduce cost per lead
Thanks to Sixth City’s switch to CallRail, Pet Palace now has access to much more detailed call insights. With the ability to run weekly reports for the appropriate managers at each location, both Sixth City and Pet Palace can better understand who is calling and how campaigns are working in a timely manner. And they can double-check this data through CallRail’s call recording function as well.
“Pet Palace has told us they love the weekly report functionality,” says DiMatteo, who notes that one of the things CallRail does really well is provide keyword level tracking within the individual phone numbers. “CallRail allows us to see which numbers are performing the best by the given keywords and campaigns,” says DiMatteo.
The ability to get more accurate and timely data insights has also led to tangible successes on paid campaigns. Sixth City can optimize Pet Palace campaigns with CallRail’s keyword-level tracking, which lets Sixth City set up paid-specific phone numbers and see what the best-performing campaigns are by keywords and campaigns. These types of granular insights allow Sixth City to optimize spend based on conversions – which has helped lower the cost per lead (CPL), cost per click (CPC), and highlighted the best-performing campaigns.
“Optimizing campaigns with CallRail has drastically decreased the cost per click and cost per lead — which is a main focus for us.” – Steve DiMatteo, senior SEO strategist at Sixth City.
Pet Palace becomes a top performer while lowering costs
Sixth City has gone from struggling to get the data needed to improve campaign performance to knowing exactly who is calling and what keywords are driving calls. This is because CallRail makes getting data insights from calls and campaigns easier and more accurate.
CallRail also makes it easier for Sixth City to identify a CPL for each location. “It was essentially impossible to have a true, accurate CPL in our paid campaigns with the old provider,” says DiMatteo. “Now, we're able to easily filter by location and source within CallRail … we have reliable CPL data across every facet of the paid campaign. CallRail allows us to report these CPL figures with confidence to the client."
“You’re going to get a lot of people who never even visit your website,” says DiMatteo. He notes that the detailed data from CallRail has helped to provide a more accurate representation of who is coming to Pet Palace for the first time, where they are coming from, and how they are finding out about the business. With CallRail, Sixth City has also been able to put individual numbers on Google Business Profiles on the organic and paid side, which has further helped them track where calls are coming from.
What’s more, CallRail is also more affordable than Pet Palace’s previous vendor while delivering way more value.
“We actually end up saving money with CallRail due to the base package structure and how we pay for the minutes themselves rather than just by the total number of phone numbers we use on the account.” –Steve DiMatteo, the senior SEO strategist as Sixth City
CallRail also helps set up Sixth City and Pet Palace for long-term success and has been able to show their value largely because they have the data to show the ROI they’re delivering. “The thing that’s going to save you every single time is if you can roll into a meeting and say here is the data and let me show you the ROI of what you’re spending,” says DiMatteo.
Get more accurate insights from your calls.
