068: Don’t Let Technology Intimidate You with Courtney Tyson of CallTrackingMetrics

Title: Don’t Let Technology Intimidate You with Courtney Tyson of CallTrackingMetrics

Guest: Courtney Tyson

Peter: Today, my guest is Courtney Tyson with CallTrackingMetrics. We have worked with CallTrackingMetrics for quite a while. They’re a supplier of ours. We are excited to have Courtney with us today. She actually has a podcast that she hosts called Smart Route.

Today, we get to interview her and learn more about her company and what they do.

Courtney: Hi, Peter. Thank you so much for having me. I’m super excited to be here, especially after we’ve, you know, have been working together for so many years now.

Peter: When we talked about this podcast, we talked about a theme, and I think it’s appropriate for us to mention that the overriding theme of this conversation really is don’t don’t let technology intimidate you because we are going to be talking about some very interesting technology, but we’ll also be primarily focusing on the benefits of that and what you guys do. Courtney, give us a little bit about you. What what’s your background and what brought you to CallTrackingMetrics?

Courtney: Sure. So I have always worked in software throughout my career, specifically for software companies that cater communicators and marketers. I began my career with a company called PR Newswire. They’re actually best known for press release distribution.

Peter: I am familiar with them. Yeah.

Courtney: Yeah. It’s a great company. They were bought out by Cision. They’re a media monitoring company. And it’s when that transition occurred, I really fell in love with software and and technology.

I took a break from technology for a hot minute, worked in in not worked in the nonprofit sector. You know, it was at that point I realized I really missed software and working in the ever changing world of technology. So my now boss at the time who I actually knew from working at Cision reached out to me with a opportunity at Call Tracking Metrics that was very intriguing. And and so I I jumped on it. I really believed in what CTM was doing, at that time.

So here in this little town that sits between DC and Baltimore, the startup software company, were really helping marketers to work smarter and not harder. They were really helping to change the way in which businesses understood their advertising channels and collected data around their customers. And so that that was very intriguing to me. And then and most importantly, you know, what we’re doing is helping businesses to maximize their marketing dollars, which I think is really crucial in today’s world and financial climate. That’s definitely what attracted me to CTM.

So I’ve been here for over four years now. And now my title is I’m a strategic partnership manager. And I basically manage our partner ecosystem, which is a series of programs that cater to companies like biz marketing who advocate for our brand and kind of resell our application, right? I love my job because what I get to do is nurture and create relationships with our partners like you every day. My goal is always to help our partners be as successful as possible because their success is CTM success.

Peter: Right. Our story with respect to call tracking metrics is I started biz marketing ten years ago, a little ten and a half years ago, and was aware of different solutions in the marketplace. But the current the solutions at the time for call attribution, meaning I mean, basically, what we’re talking about is figuring out how people came to your website and called, I mean, at a very basic level, obviously we can use this for other sources, but looking at how they came to your website and then tracking the calls, the reason that I’m interested in that as a marketer, first and foremost, when I started my business was I wanted to prove the value of what we were doing to my customers, to my clients. So I could actually show them a list of calls they received and say, look, this work we did for you generated these calls. So at a very basic level, but, there weren’t really any, what I would say cost effective solutions out there.

There was, you know, there were some really big companies in the space, very expensive. We tried probably three different solutions of startups. Then we somehow discovered, stumbled onto call tracking metrics. It was just like, this is just like Goldilocks and the perfect porridge. We’re like, wow, this is not too hot, not too cold, just right.

Courtney: Love it, love it. And it’s interesting, Peter, you guys actually started working with us back in 2013. So it’s been a while, but what that also tells me, right, is that biz marketing, you guys have been innovative from the start. Right? You adopted call tracking when it became when it just started to become a thing.

Right? So I started working here in 2018, and at that time, call tracking was this this kind of new this new marketing mechanism. Right? Was it was it was just a new tool that that marketers were using. And so I I thought that was pretty cool too to be a part of that Yeah.

And to kinda see how just call tracking has grown and how it’s just become a staple in so many businesses, just strategies, right, has been really cool to see. So

Peter: Yeah. So that’s our story. And we’ve we probably, I could legitimately say 95% of our clients, and we’ve got over a 150 clients, are on your platform. Mhmm. So we really, it’s just essential to the way that we provide our services to our clients.

So what what let let’s hear a little bit about Call Tracking Metrics. So you guys are located sort of near DC and Baltimore, kinda in between the two. Is that where you guys are?

Courtney: Yep. That’s right. In a little suburb, called Millersville, Maryland.

Peter: How did the company get started?

Courtney: It’s actually a really great story. And it all kind of started just a couple of years before you started working with us. So CTM was founded by Lori and Todd Fisher in 2011, literally in their basement. They were basically doing consulting work with a number of different types of businesses, everything from like a car dealership, a bail bondsman, a plumber, kind of all across the board. What they realized is that no matter the type of business they were working with, all of these businesses had a similar need for the ability to associate a phone call to a paid ad.

So they basically needed to understand which of their ads were driving calls to their business. Right? So one of the businesses that they were working with at the time actually told Todd that they wouldn’t even let him run their advertising without, you know, having the data behind Sure. Which ads are actually working. Right?

So with that said, he went and he built call tracking metrics, right, to prove to his customers their return on their investment, and the concept took off. So that was kind of like the the the basis of why our company was formed. But with that said, call tracking metrics has evolved dramatically from the early days. And like I said, well, our bread and butter has always been being able to tell you which of your advertising channels is driving phone calls. We’re actually also a phone system as well, you know, which makes our platform a perfect tool to track calls, but also to make them too, which is pretty cool.

But not only calls, you can send text messages, you can live chat, we track form fills. So we kind of do all of the above, omnichannel tracking. In terms of who our company serves, I would say we work or we serve anyone or any business that’s really looking to understand which of their marketing efforts are working. We’re a great fit for businesses looking for a communications platform. We’re a great fit for businesses looking to collect more data around their customers who are communicating with their company too.

Peter: So we’ve been talking about call tracking, and I think we’ve gotta get a little down in details here. So there is something called dynamic number insertion or DNI for short, which is one of the core pieces of how all of this works. So do you wanna dive into that a little bit and just Yeah. Share about how how it works?

Courtney: Sure. First things first, call tracking metrics, we can track anytime any type of advertising channel, whether it be an online ad or a traditional ad

Peter: Postcards.

Courtney: Print radio. Yeah. With tracking online ads, we we make it we try to make it as easy as possible. Right? So with dynamic number insertion, what we’re doing is providing our customers with a snippet of code that gets applied to the header of their website.

And so that code is allowing us to swap the number that’s typically on a on a website with a number that the business assigned to an advertising channel within our platform. Simply put, say, in call tracking metrics, you assign a you assign a a phone number to an organic advertising channel, maybe to a a paid Google ad, maybe to Facebook. When someone goes to your website from one of those channels, what we’re going to do is swap the number that’s typically shown with the number associated with the channel in which they came to your site. So if I came to your site from Facebook, I’m going to see that number that you assigned to Facebook and CTM, and that’s how we’re determining where the caller came from. So that’s dynamic number insertion.

But I also wanna point out in terms of traditional channels, it’s as easy as buying a number in Call Tracking Metrics and applying it to a postcard, right? Or Yep. Throwing it in an email

Peter: Put it

Courtney: on a Google board. Right? Yeah.

Peter: Exactly. Yeah. We, so the underlying technology basically is that each source, each advertising source, or or any source, paid or not, will get its own number or set of numbers associated with it. Generally, like for our setup, we assign a single number per source. So the ones that we use are typically Google Ads.

That’s the number one, one that we use. In fact, you know, we’ll be running ads for somebody that may be the only number we use. So you’re either gonna see their direct number or, a Google Ad number that we’ve assigned or, Facebook or sometimes we do organic search just so we can show the value of SEO. And then, typically, we’ll have referral maybe as a source, just generic referral, which could be then it would pick up if somebody clicked on Yelp and came to the website. And then also one thing we do is if we’re using the numbers for, for example, for Yelp, we’ll take the number that we’ve assigned to Yelp and we’ll substitute the number on the Yelp profile for the business with the call tracking number.

So then we’re able to get a better idea of the amount of activity that Yelp, for example, is generating. I’m not a fan of Yelp. Sure. Don’t know many of them are, but anyway, yeah, that’s So it’s just a pool of numbers that gets assigned. Each one goes to a different source.

Then that’s just the beginning, right? So basically the number swaps on the site, you don’t even see it, right?

Courtney: Yep.

Peter: And you’re seeing a different number. You’re calling that number or you’re clicking on that number if you’re on your mobile phone. Most people are on their phones now and it just happens. You don’t even notice it. You click on the number and then the call and then what happens?

Courtney: At that point, when the caller is calling one of the numbers you’ve assigned to one of your advertising channels, the phone call actually is getting forwarded directly to your business. You know, we make it very seamless in that no no matter how someone’s finding a phone number and they call it, calls are always gonna make their way to you.

Peter: So it rings to your business number or number you assigned.

Courtney: Correct. Yep. So you can literally point or you could forward phone calls to wherever you’d like. So we’ve got some customers that forward directly to like their main business line, or maybe we’ve got some customers who forward to their cell phones because they’re sole business owners, right? So there are all different ways you can do that.

Or what you can also do is answer calls within our platform too.

Peter: Yeah. We have a few clients that do that. So one of the things that we’ve done is because there is a call recording the call option that’s available. So what we’ll do for a set set of our clients is we actually have it pick up on the first ring. So it just picks up immediately when the person calls, and it plays a brief recording that says, thank you for calling Jim’s Roofing.

This call may be recorded for quality assurance purposes. We’ll connect you now. So we actually have just a brief preamble that to meet legal requirements for recording calls. So we it’s not Mhmm. Required to record a call, but it’s an optional feature that we enable for some of our clients.

So the call is recorded, and then the person calls the business, has the conversation, and hangs up. Mhmm. And now you’ve got this just rich amount of information about that person. And of course, we just throw all that information away. No, just kidding.

What do you think is the most valuable when you first set up a customer with call tracking metrics?

Courtney: The number one kind of like big benefit, like I said before, it’s kind of our bread and butter is really call attribution. Call it’s just one of the one of the main reasons to track calls. Right? We’re helping you understand which ads are working and maybe which are not working. And then when you understand, you know, which ads are working and which ads aren’t, you can then start diving into, you know, why aren’t they working or why are they working?

Is there something about the content? Is the targeting offers, is it working right? And therefore, you know, having being able to kind of dig into those things help you to helps you to have a more informed marketing strategy. But I think it’s also attribution is important because understanding it’s good for businesses to understand which channels are driving quality, but also legitimate leads. Obviously, you want your marketing dollars to work for you.

You wanna make sure that they’re your dollar marketing dollars are making money for you. So for example, an advertising channel might be driving a lot of calls to a business, but the data our platform gives you can help you look at things like, for example, maybe while a channel is driving a lot of calls to your business, maybe only a small percentage of those callers are actually converting. So this tells you that maybe the messaging in your ad isn’t clear enough. Maybe you need to refine the targeting. Maybe you need to adjust the ad content, or maybe it’s your agents who are answering the calls.

Peter: I was going to say,

Courtney: you might.

Peter: Maybe there’s a problem somewhere between the phone and the back of the chair.

Courtney: Right. And you

Peter: need to figure that out. Yeah. As a training mechanism.

Courtney: Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I think attribution is obviously one of the the big benefits to call tracking, but we could talk about call recording too. Obviously, using a tool like us, a great benefit to that is recording all of your calls. I think placing an ad and getting someone to communicate with your company is half the battle.

Ultimately, the person who picks up the phone for your company is going to have a big impact on whether or not that lead converts. That’s exactly

Peter: what I tell our customers. Can make your phone ring, It’s up to you to close them.

Courtney: Right. So with our our platform is pretty interesting. Think about an agent answering a a call. They probably have a manager, right, who’s overseeing them and their team and and and their call activity. Our transcription feature, which takes a call recording and transcribes it, helps our clients to determine things like the sentiment of a call.

There’s even a real time transcription feature, where as a call’s occurring, we’re transcribing that call. And so that’s a great feature because, for example, the call’s not going well, we can determine the sentiment via the transcription. So an agent’s manager can get an alert says, hey, this call’s not going very well. And then that manager could literally take over the call, right? They can listen to it back and coach the the agent how they could have handled it better.

So that’s something to think about. But also think about understanding the length of a call. You know, maybe you have an agent on your team who’s closing leads much faster than the rest. A manager can listen to their calls, figure out why are they We converting best. Right?

Peter: We had that happen the other day. We were looking at some metrics with a client. We noticed that the average length of the calls was like twenty minutes for a typical sales call for something that’s not very sophisticated. It’s really where they’re booking an appointment for a service really shouldn’t take that long. So we were using that opportunity to kinda listen to those calls and then, you know, come up with a plan to help, you know, create a script that was going to help them kinda get to the point a little quicker and close Yeah.

The deal. Everything we’ve talked about here is available in reports. The thing that I really like about your platform, one of the features that I like is we do a if there is a call, we can set up a notification to the customer that they received a call and then the details of the call in real time, like just send them a text message. You had a call and this was the detail, or we can send them an email, or we can just send them a daily summary that they can look at. When we first add new especially when it’s a new business owner, they really appreciate that level of detail.

And then over time, they usually turn that feature off. But early on, that’s very helpful. One of the things that you all added quite a while ago, I mean, you guys are really early in the game on this side of things, was text messaging and the ability to do that. I do have a story about that. We had a group of customers who we made text messaging an optional feature of their call tracking metrics installation.

So we just said, well, we could turn on text messaging. So it’s Mhmm. All the numbers that we’re using are text enabled. We don’t even think about that now, but back in the day, you had to think, oh, was this number text enabled? So could somebody text that number?

One of the things we discovered when we turned on text messaging for some of our customers on the numbers that we were using for call tracking, they had already been receiving text messages. And they didn’t even their website didn’t even say, let’s, you know, text us. It was a shocker. We quickly said for this segment of customers, everybody is getting text messaging. It’s not optional anymore.

It’s required. And we’re seeing from new clients inbound acquisition, you know, of you know, for that group of customers, 10 to 15% of the new activity from new customers is from text messaging, inbound text.

Courtney: Wow. It’s interesting to think of that thought though, in that they might not have realized, right, if that their customers preferred communicating via text message, right, or a group of them did. Yeah. And that’s what’s kind of cool about call tracking metrics too is that we are an omnichannel communications platform. So not only are we tracking those communications channels to your business, such as the calls, the text, warm fills, the chats, you can facilitate all of that communication via our platform as well.

Peter: And report on it as well. Yep. Which is

Courtney: Yes. Yes. So I think that’s another thing we should talk about too. Right? So in terms of the benefits of call tracking, we talked about attribution.

We talked about call recording. But, like, another huge piece of this is call metrics and session data. So I wanna talk a little about about the importance of that. So there’s all different types of data we’re helping our businesses to pull in about their callers. So specifically session data, that that relates to the visitor’s session on your website when they decided to then maybe pick up the phone and call you, right?

So what kind of activities were they what pages on their website did they on your website did they visit before they picked up the phone? That would be really cool to see, right? What was their journey on their website before or your website before they picked up the phone? So that’s something to think about. So with session data, pull in all of the page view history.

We are pulling in things like the caller’s IP address, which helps businesses to confirm the location of their callers, which then helps them to understand, you know, maybe they’re getting a ton of business from one region in which they’re not advertising to. Right? We can even do things like pulling keyword data. So telling you what keywords that they type into a search engine in order to then find and then click on your business. It can also tell you things like what browser they’re using.

Right? All of that information is is helping you to or businesses, right, to to better understand their customers, how they like to communicate, when they like to communicate, what’s what’s driving them to click. But also to think about in terms of call metrics, not just session data, but the length of a call like we had just talked about, the time that the call came in, how many calls are being answered versus not being answered. So there’s lots and lots of data that you can take. Even understanding what key presses callers are taking.

So if you have a message that says press 1 for sales, 1 and 2 for support, we can help you understand, well, how many calls are you getting for each. Right? So that’s just some of the kind of data points that that we can pull in, but they’re all very important data points that are gonna help a business understand their customers and then adjust their marketing strategy or even their communication strategy, right, to their customer. We were working with a roofing company who realized, you know, just by looking at our platform, they were getting a ton of calls that weren’t converting. They turned on our transcription feature, which helped them to determine that the calls that were not converting were actually callers who were inquiring about metal roofs.

And this company at the time did not offer metal roofs as as one of their products. Right? So we were literally able to help them find, like, a whole new revenue stream because they were able to tell through these transcriptions that these calls that were not converting were actually leads for metal roofs. So how cool is that that just by understanding the types of conversations your agents were having with the callers to your business help help this company to literally grow their business by adding a whole new product line. Like, that’s I I love that success story.

It’s definitely one of my favorites.

Peter: That’s pretty cool. What is next for call tracking metrics and, you know, kinda what what do you see on the horizon in terms of, you know, the future for call tracking and and all that?

Courtney: We’re we’re we’re really big on helping marketers and businesses, you know, work as sophisticated as possible. Right? We wanna help those who are working in marketing be sophisticated marketers, be sophisticated businesses, you know, behind their marketing strategies. So one of our biggest accomplishments of this year was the launch of our GA four integration. So Google is sunsetting their Google Analytics tool.

They’re introducing GA four. Google Analytics is sunsetting next summer, GA four will be the the main tool. So this was huge for us because this integration allows allows marketers to send data from CTM into GA four right now, which allows mark will allow marketers to have a whole year of data in GA four before Google Analytics sunset. So that’s big for marketers because all of that data that we’re helping them to send into GA four is going to help them drive, successful campaigns. So that’s really exciting.

And then additionally, we’re also in the process of building out, call tracking metrics marketplace. So if you’re familiar with the Salesforce app exchange, it’s actually a very similar concept. We’re gonna be giving businesses the ability to easily build with CTM, whether it’s like an integration, an app, a widget maybe. This is really big for our customers no matter how you’re using our platform because what it means is that our partners will now have the ability to help CTM expand our feature set and capabilities. So we’ll be able to cater to even more types of use cases and types of businesses.

So we’re really excited about that too.

Peter: Cool. I can’t wait to see that. Yeah. It’s it’s been great for us being, you know, recognized as a partner for call tracking metrics, you know, for us personally, I mean, you guys are really one of the the building blocks of the offering as a agency, as a marketing agency. And I do believe that if you’re running a marketing agency or a marketing organization, you have to have first of all, you need to have this technology.

But second of all, I think just in particular with respect to you guys and CallTrackingMetrics, a company that is really approachable and responsive, And, that’s one thing I really like about working with you guys. You know, if you haven’t heard of this, then you probably are doing the wrong. You’re probably shouldn’t

Courtney: do marketing Right.

Peter: To begin with. Yeah. But

Courtney: Because we’re all about ROI. Right? Like, we’re we’re showing you your return on your investment with all that money that you’re pouring into your advertising channels. And, you know, in a climate financial climate like we’re in now, unfortunately, sometimes marketing dollars are the first to be cut. So we’re gonna help you Right.

Make that not happen. Right? Like, we’re gonna help you understand what’s working and what’s not so you can keep your budget, use it as smart as you possibly can.

Peter: Thanks for listening to this episode of Biz and Life Done Well with Peter Wilson. You can subscribe to us on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and most of the other popular podcast platforms. Please tell your friends about us and leave us a review so even more people will find out about us. Thanks again. We’ll see you soon.