There is a catch, however, and it has to do with those stubborn consumers who like to use the phone. Digital marketers must decide whether there’s room under the analytics tent for offline conversions. Data (and intuition) suggest these telephone stalwarts are not going away, so what’s the play here? By tracking calls, marketers can, in fact, get rich data from those who take action over the phone.

Call tracking has been around for years to track print campaigns, allowing advertisers to know which media are generating the phone calls. Recent breakthroughs now allow a merchant to tie an incoming call to the search engine keyword and referring source that delivered the caller.

To illustrate, here is a short walking tour of how a typical business warms up to call measurement:

Level 1 — Validate media spending: Advertisers are initially drawn to the idea of call measurement and call tracking because of the prospect of eliminating wasteful spending on ads that are not working. Companies can measure the number of responses an ad generates to gauge which types of media (or which providers) are producing the highest rates of return.

Level 2 — Evaluate how calls are handled: When a company’s managers are ready to move beyond simple quantitative analysis, a comprehensive call measurement program will allow them to monitor the effectiveness of their team’s response.

Are incoming calls being handled properly? Are customer service representatives hitting their talking points? When the sales team makes a follow-up call, are the agents sharing consistent information with the new leads?

These questions can be answered by monitoring the audio recordings of inbound and outbound calls. After listening to a call, the manager can append subjective information that will prove helpful for future analysis.

Level 3 — Capitalize on the knowledge that has been collected: At this point, the marketing manager has focused spending on top-performing placements (Level 1) and then ensured that all calls are being handled properly (Level 2). The next step is to utilize the data that has been collected through the call measurement program.

Are these leads being converted into long-term customers? If the initial call is simply an information query, are the proper follow-up procedures in place to stay in contact with this prospective customer? Will new marketing campaigns be focused on the preferences/habits that have been demonstrated in the responses to prior campaigns? Is the call data being effectively integrated with the company’s day-to-day business software and processes?

The progression from the first level to the third happens quickly and naturally. Many of the advertisers we work with initially think they only need to validate their marketing expenditures, but we go ahead and throw in the call recording capabilities.

It usually takes about one day before the merchant wants to listen and track every business call. Moving from the second level to the third level requires a bigger push, but managers quickly realize the value of efficient lead management.

We’re working hard to create call tracking tools that allow advertisers to gain greater insight into how their marketing dollars are performing. Online marketing can yield incredible amounts of detailed guidance that has never before been available to marketing planners.

Make sure your performance metrics go beyond a simple click count, and you will find those holdouts you may have been missing.

The viral campaign has yielded a 16% response rate within its target demographic, meaning thousands of people to date have clicked to hear “The Signal.”

Media Storm, Magnolia Pictures’ media agency, approached Ringleader for an innovative campaign. The agencies played around with the idea of a click-to-video campaign but considering the maximized reach of a click-to-call campaign, decided this would be the optimal option.

Craig Woerz, managing partner of Media Storm said “The mobile medium is undoubtedly one of the most useful and, simultaneously, underutilized channels available to marketers today. Much like TVs are in nearly every home, most people now carry a mobile device. With the right partner, like Ringleader, you can reach those people and engage them on the spot. The success and high response rate we’ve experienced through Ringleader’s campaign has encouraged us to recommend mobile advertising elements as part of future projects.”

The campaign relies on the mobile banner that invites users to click the ad, which lands them on film’s mobile site. Users can click to “Listen to the Signal” option, after which a call comes to the user’s handset. The sounds heard are noises of the movie characters being transformed into mass murderers.

Bob Walczak, CEO of Ringleader stated “ ‘The Singnal’ project exemplifies how innovative advertising campaigns can and should cross from one screen to the other. And, the beauty of it is how easily that capability grows your opportunities to capture minds. The mobile element complemented other online components – it didn’t mirror them. The click-to-call program gave Media Storm the next medium through which to reach tech savvy people with a catchy, viral campaign.”

VariTalk is not new to the messaging and marketing campaign industry. Previously, the company spearheaded campaigns for “Snakes On a Plane” with the voice of Samuel L. Jackson, as well as “Americas Next Top Model” with the vocal stylings of host Tyra Banks. VoIP, Inc. will serve as the provider for these campaigns and work alongside VariTalk as a turnkey VoIP service.

Frederick Lowe, CEO of VariTalk, states, “The demand for personalized services is growing rapidly and these campaigns underscore the success of this technology and the benefits it has to offer the entertainment world”. He continues, “we’re excited to have VoIP, Inc. as our preferred VoIP service provider for these campaigns, as we’ve seen 100% reliability with their innovative and robust VoIP technology. We expect demand for our services to reach unprecedented levels as this new wave of viral marketing catches on, and we know that VoIP, Inc. will be able to handle the growth.”

Affirming Lowe’s comments, CTO of VoIP Shawn Lewis added, “VariTalk has the best reputation in the entertainment business for successfully driving creative marketing campaigns that leverage the latest technology innovations. We’re excited to be working with VariTalk to bring the 30 Rock campaign and others to market”.

VoIP, Inc also provides Click-to-Call services for the NFL Network and Google.

In a recent report on click-to-call technology, market research firm Pike & Fischer concluded that while click to call technology could open up new areas of Web marketing, several factors, including lack of consumer adoption, privacy concerns, lack of industry support and bandwidth constraint, may drive the technology into relative obscurity.

When a technology such as click-to-call is being adopted as quickly as it is, it’s important to constantly evaluate both the benefits and the potential drawbacks/pitfalls. But I wanted to take a moment to address several of the points that the research firm positioned as threats to the survival and growth of click to call. Strong backing from industry analyst such as Forrester Research, plus demonstrable ROI from click-to-call deployments for some of the world’s most recognizable brands indicate that the Pike & Fischer’s speculation that these perceived threats may not come to pass. In several instances, in fact, they are fueling its adoption.

Let’s break these issues down point by point.

Customer Buying Behavior

The report indicates that some Web shoppers have well-established patterns for online purchases and prefer the anonymity of the Web. The implication being that click-to-call does not fit into their online purchasing “workflow.”

Counter argument: It is true that for many types of purchases and many types of buyers, click to call is not necessary to complete a purchase. However, recent reports by both Jupiter Research and Gomez, Inc. have found that when customers are having a poor experience with an online store, not only do they abandon the online purchase, but they are less likely to purchase from that brand offline aswell. In an environment where 6 out of every 10 website visitors are abandoning their shopping carts, wouldn’t you want to implement tools that addressed this problem? At this point, we’re not just talking about your web channel, we’re talking about your brand!

Often times, Web browsers find information about complex products online, and then have additional follow on questions that only a human can answer. In fact, analyst surveys repeatedly show that customers are much more comfortable researching online, but buying offline or over the phone.

Click-to-call is a seamless way to bridge customers to the voice channel, and maintain the context of the user’s online session so that the time they did invest online does not go to waste.

When users search for local businesses on Google Maps, they’re presented with company information, plus a new “call” link. Users type in their home phone number and click “connect for free.” Google calls them up, and when they answer the phone, Google Maps connects them with the business they selected. It’s just like making a phone call without making a phone call. When Google calls a Maps user, the business they’re trying to connect with shows up on their caller ID so customers can call back whenever they like.

Google’s click-to-call is powered by eBay’s Skype and Google Talk.

The new calling service is free for both customers and businesses, and is not part of an advertising package. Currently service is only available in the U.S. Google foots the bill for local or long distance land line charges and promises not to call customers for any other reason. According to Google Maps, user telephone information is deleted from their database once it makes sure the service has done its job.

Pike & Fischer maintains that even though click-to-call is being embraced by prominent online companies like eBay and Google, consumers have not yet demonstrated that they are comfortable with receiving VoIP calls from sales people. The research firm also mentions customer concerns about security and privacy and points to the lack of a standard cross-platform VoIP technology.

“Click-to-talk technology could open up whole new areas of interactive broadband marketing by integrating popular forms of rich media advertising with a voice communications feature,” reads the report. It continues, “Despite this, consumer behavior is one of the most difficult metrics to gauge, and as with many consumer-focused technologies, innovation may quickly become relegated to obscurity should consumers not adopt it in significant numbers.”

The report examines VoIP implementations by companies like Google, Amazon and eBay and projects the impact that VoIP will have on e-commerce.

eStara provides technology for approximately 350 customers to increase online sales conversions, including such brands as Starwood Hotels, DaimlerChryselr, Dell, Apple, and Continental Airlines. Its Click-to-Call solution allows online consumers to request calls from a salesperson via the telephone or computer.

“Over the last two years, we have consistently expanded our end-to-end commerce solutions to make it easier for companies to create more relevant interactions across the entire customer life cycle,” said Bob Burke, ATG’s President and CEO. “eStara solutions fit perfectly with our strategy as they provide an increasingly vital new channel for helping consumers go from browsing to buying. Furthermore, the combination of ATG’s on demand initiative with eStara’s pure on demand business will accelerate the expansion of our recurring revenue model.”

EStara CEO John Federman added that, “By joining forces with ATG, eStara can leverage both companies’ combined successes, technologies and best practices to more completely satisfy the needs of online consumers and e-commerce businesses.”