Now, you’ll be able to double down on PPC and SEO campaigns that are truly bringing in customers.
Although phone inquiries usually represent high-intent prospects, it can be difficult to know which marketing channel drove a particular lead to call your business – that’s where Google Analytics 4 comes in.
What Is Google Analytics 4?
Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is the newest version of Google’s website traffic and engagement tracker.
It can help you understand how many people are visiting your website, what pages they’re reading, and what information makes them become a customer.
GA4 will allow you to seamlessly measure your customer’s journey across multiple platforms – this includes phone calls and offline conversions.
As your agency makes the switch to GA4, you can enhance your experience with phone call conversions to effectively track and report the journey of your clients’ leads.
Does Google Analytics 4 Track Calls By Default?
No. Googleʼs native call tracking doesn’t effectively analyze calls.
Right out of the gate, GA4 only tracks the following conversion events:
- purchase (web and app).
- first_open (app only).
- in_app_purchase (app only).
- app_store_subscription_convert (app only).
- app_store_subscription_renew (app only).
To properly attribute phone calls within GA4, you may need to manually create custom conversion events.
“With the move to GA4, goals are now conversions. GA4 is much more intelligent and automated about conversion tracking, so setting up goals based on limited conversion criteria is no longer necessary.
Conversions in GA4 are based on events. Thus, your conversions will be event_name, with the parameter modifying the event. You can now mark an event as a conversion.”
Also, even though GA4 has the ability to track clicks on a phone number, they still miss out on a large percentage of calls where users type the numbers directly into their phones.
How Can I Track Advanced Phone Call Analytics In Google Analytics 4?
Since GA4 does not effectively track phone calls, implementing Call Tracking by CallRail into your Google Analytics strategy can help you gain more actionable marketing insights than using Google Analytics 4 alone.
CallRail integrates seamlessly with GA4 to enhance your call-tracking process.
Step-By-Step Guide To Creating Call Tracking Conversion Events In Google Analytics 4
CallRail’s full guide to Google Analytics 4 lays out how to set up your goals (now known as “conversions”) in GA4. Here are the quick details.
To manually mark an event as a conversion in GA4, you can configure the event in two ways:
- Track an existing event as a conversion.
- Create a new conversion event from the event name.
To start tracking an existing event as a conversion:
- In the left navigation, click Admin > Events.
- Locate the event in the Existing events table.
- In the event’s “Mark as conversion” column, click to turn the switch on. If you have CallRail you will see conversions under the following names: phone_call, form, chat, sms.
To create a conversion from the event name:
- In the left navigation, select Admin > Conversions.
- Click New Conversion Event.
- Enter the name of the new event. Be sure to use the exact event name with proper capitalization.
- Click Save.
Sign up for a free trial of CallRail’s services and discover what advanced call tracking can do for your business.
Start Using Phone Call Event Data To Supercharge Your Marketing
You shouldn’t have to guess which marketing tactics are working for you, and to what extent.
With call tracking software, you can know for sure.
CallRail will help you better “understand what makes your phones ring.” And with this new set of data, you and your clients can start filling the information gaps in your process.
Now, you can get the full scope of your ROI and keep track of all the major conversion events within a lead’s lifecycle.
Once you start incorporating offline conversion tracking into your strategy, you’ll notice an improvement in your agent-client relationship, as you prove campaign value through data collection.
Your clients just want assurance that their marketing efforts are paying off, and leveraging Google Analytics 4 with CallRail’s Call Tracking can help you prove that all aspects of their marketing campaigns (including phone calls) are working successfully.
