How to Track Phone Number Clicks & Touches in Analytics

What's the point of having a phone number if you're not going to use it?  

One of the best reasons to use a vanity phone number from RingBoost is that when you choose one of our local call forwarding or toll-free plan packages, you can take advantage of call tracking. That feature is incredibly powerful and can show you really important details like the length of time spent on calls and a whole bunch of other useful data. What it won't always do is show you where (which channels) those calls originated from.   With some basic coding skills and a good website tracking system (like Google Analytics) however you'll be able to determine how many of your users dialed your custom vanity number when they are on your website - you can even set it up to show on what page they called from; and you're about to learn how!  

Step 1: Select a Custom Phone Number A custom phone number is a marketing asset and you'll want to know what kind of return you're receiving. RingBoost has the single largest database anywhere of vanity toll-free and local custom phone numbers - and we're sure that there is one perfect for you and your business (just reach out to our friendly and knowledgeable staff for help.)  

Step 2: Publish in Multiple Locations Only when the phone number is visible on the website are you going to be able to track any calls that come through it, so make sure that it is present in multiple locations. You can and should place your phone number in a high profile area and easy access areas such as the header of your website pages. It should also go into the footer and even within text or copy of your website's content.   

Step 3: Set Up the Event Tracking To actually report on the number of phone calls that came from your website, you'll need to set up the parameters of the interaction. In Google Analytics, you'll need to set up an event. Why not a conversion, instead? Simple - events are for tracking interactions and conversions for those events when there is a specific monetary value assigned to them (like a sale.)   It's super, super simple to set up a event in Google Analytics: under the Admin menu, select "Goals" and then red "Add New Goal" button.  

Next, you'll be presented two options - the first is to use a default template and the other is to use the custom option. Select "Custom" and you're one-third of the way there!  

The next step is to actually provide a name for this event (in the example image below, the name of the goal is "Phone Number Interaction") and then select the "Event" option. Once you select "continue" you will be presented with three, very important, options: the event conditions.  

Event conditions let you know at a glance which action/interaction was taken (like clicking on your phone number) so it's very important to name each field in a way that can be understood by others. The three conditions are "Category," "Action," and "Label". If our aim is to track clicks or touches on a phone number on a website, then it might look like the following: Category: Phone-Calls Action: Click-Touch Label: Page-Header Simple enough right? Right! There is just one more step required to make it all work perfectly.

Step 4: Implement the tracking code. There are several ways to do implement the tracking code, depending what kind of website setup you have, but they are all pretty straightforward. If you're using Google Tag Manager, there are specific instructions. But for most other scenarios all that is required (once the actual event labels are set up) is to implement either HTML or Javascript tracking code. They both function the same for the most part; it just depends on what kind of website/infrastructure. Javascript onClick=”ga(‘send’, ‘event’, { eventCategory: ‘Phone-Calls‘, eventAction: ‘Click-Touch’, eventLabel: ‘Page-header’});” HTML <a href=”tel:INSERT_NUMBER“onclick=”gtag(‘event’, ‘clicks’, { event_category: ‘Phone-Calls’, event_action: ‘Click-Touch’, event_label: ‘Page-Header’});” ”>INSERT_NUMBER</a>  

You're Ready To Track Clicks & Touches on Web & Mobile Phone Numbers Now you'll be able to see how many people click on your phone number to dial it. If you are not signed up for a RingBoost plan and want to know more, phone call tracking solutions are the best way to understand what happens on an inbound call. But even just starting with the basics of knowing how many calls are generated by a particular channel gives custom phone number owners valuable insights they can use to improve customer service and go to market strategies. Knowing with certainty what marketing channels, calls to action, and website locations are responsible for initiating the call can help you take your user experience initiatives to a whole new level.