Dental practices invest heavily in ads, mailers, and social media, yet many still don’t know which marketing efforts actually bring in new patients. Too often, marketing gets the phone to ring, but reliance on guesswork, inconsistent manual tracking, and missed calls can cost practices potential patients before they even book an appointment.
On a recent episode of The Dental Marketer podcast, CallRail's Senior Vertical Marketing Manager, Amanda Kepshire, joined the show to discuss how dental practices can stop guessing, gain clarity on what’s working, and convert more callers into lifelong patients.
Why traditional patient tracking falls short
If you're unsure which marketing channels are driving new patients, you’re not alone. Many practices still rely on staff to ask, "How did you hear about us?" to understand patient sources, but this provides an incomplete picture. Today’s patient journey spans multiple touchpoints, both online and offline, making it harder to connect every new appointment to the marketing that inspired it.
An important, often overlooked, stage in this journey occurs when potential patients search for your practice online and read reviews before making contact. These early impressions can strongly influence whether they decide to call.
A patient’s final decision is often shaped by more than just a single ad or promotion—it’s influenced by your online reputation and every touchpoint along the way. Without full visibility into this journey, you’re only seeing part of the picture. The cost can be significant, from wasted marketing spend to the long-term loss of patient lifetime value due to something as simple as a missed call. In many cases, if a patient can’t reach a practice immediately, they simply move on to the next option.
From first click to booked appointment: gaining full visibility
Closing the gaps in your patient journey requires a shift from guessing to knowing. The solution isn’t to stop marketing, but to gain clear visibility into the entire path a patient takes, from the first ad they see to the conversation they have with your front desk.
This starts with building a strong foundation: knowing exactly which marketing efforts are making your phone ring. With tools like Call Tracking and Form Tracking, you can connect every call and website submission back to its source, giving you the data to prove which messages are resonating with potential patients. In the episode, Amanda shares what kind of marketing draws her in as a potential patient.
If you're only tracking how a patient connected, you're missing the most important insights from the conversation that follows. Premium Conversation Intelligence™ solves this by automatically transcribing and summarizing calls, helping you quickly spot patient trends and create personalized follow-ups. The technology also captures the complete patient story by pulling self-reported details, like referrals, from the conversation and combining them with digital tracking data.
AI is the new marketing advantage
As Amanda explains, real success isn’t about doing more marketing—it’s about knowing what works.
"The practices that win won't just be the ones that market the most or have the most creative marketing. They'll be the ones that can prove which marketing works and then doubling down on the channels that reliably drive new patients to their door".
– Amanda Kepshire, Senior Vertical Marketing Manager at CallRail
To stay ahead of the competition, practices need to lean on technology that makes their marketing measurable and repeatable.
Chances are, your competitors are already using these kinds of tools to get ahead. Adopting the right technology can help you remove the guesswork, make smarter marketing decisions, and turn more calls into lasting patient relationships.
Ready to see how CallRail can transform your practice's growth?
