Create Custom Tracking Sources

Determine Tracking Sources Needed

Tracking sources are the various advertising channels you wish to track in CallTrackingMetrics. Tracking sources fall into two main categories:

• Onsite Source: an online advertising channel that drives traffic to your website.  The tracking script will dynamically display a tracking number to visitors coming from that channel.
• Offsite Source: an offline advertising channel where phone numbers are appearing somewhere other than your website, such as TV, print, radio, or on a website other than yours.

In CallTrackingMetrics, we have many commonly used tracking sources already programmed in your account when you first set it up. You can also add as many custom tracking sources as you need.

When purchasing a new tracking number, you will assign it a tracking source. For many of your tracking numbers, you will find that you will use the common sources already programmed as a Preset. You can choose the pre-defined source from the source drop-down to assign it to the number when you purchase it, or you can type in the name of your custom source in the tracking source field to create it in your account.

Numbers →  Buy Numbers → Configure Numbers

Add a Receiving Number → Select a Tracking Source 

 

Configure Custom Tracking Sources

If you find that the source you want to track does not already exist in your CTM account, you will need to create a new custom tracking source or edit a custom source you entered when you purchased your phone numbers initially.

1. Go to Numbers → Tracking Sources.

2. Select the “New Source” button in the top right corner or click “Edit” next to any existing source you have set up in your account.

3. You can either select an option from the Preset drop-down or create your own Custom Source. The preset drop-down includes commonly used sources and will automatically update all settings on the page for that source when selected.

4. If you are not using presets, enter a name for your custom source in the Custom Source Setup field.

If you select one of our presets (such as Google Adwords, Bing Organic, or TV), all of the source settings will be automatically updated for you.

5. Select the toggle button for Onsite or Offsite Sources

When you select Onsite (Dynamic):

This source requires the tracking code to be installed on your website.
The tracking code dynamically places tracking numbers associated to this source on your website when a visitor comes from this source.

Once configured selected → Save Changes

Matching Conditions

Matching Conditions → identify the visitors who should be associated with this tracking source

An onsite source is used for tracking numbers that will be dynamically displayed on your website. Offsite sources are for numbers displayed in print ads, TV spots, radio, and situations where the tracking number is appearing on a website other than yours.

6. If you choose Onsite, you will need to identify Matching Conditions so that our code knows how to recognize these visitors coming to your website. Enter either the Referring URL field or the Landing URL in the appropriate section. We can recognize visitors based on either where they are coming from (Referring URL) or where they are landing on your website (Landing URL).

7. Select Save Tracking Source once complete.

Use the Landing URL when you control the ad destination URL (most online advertising situations). You would use Referring URL when you do not control the URL that your visitors are coming in from. Do not use both Referring URL and the Landing URL to configure your source; use one or the other. The Landing URL field and Referring URL field should be populated using regular expressions.

 

Configure the Source Settings for Your Custom Source

1. Under Source Settings, set a Position Value. This specifies the order in which we should evaluate sources when someone comes to your website. The more granular your source is the closer to 1 you want the position to be.

2. Set Last Touch using the toggle button. By default, Last Touch is off, which means that visitors will see the same tracking number they saw the first time they came to your site, even if they come through a different tracked channel later. If you prefer to have visitors see the tracking number that matches the source they most recently came from, set Last Touch to ON.

The swapping script will evaluate the sources with smaller position scores first. This is important if you have sources that could potentially overlap in any way.  For example, you always want Google Ads to have a lower number than Google Organic, since a Google Ads visitor would also match the conditions to trigger the Google Organic source.

 

Source Settings (Optional)

Source Tag:  You can use this tag to link a tracking source to third-party services such as Salesforce

Weak Source: Allows you to track and associate sessions to a source but avoids associating session data. This is useful when the source is a high volume but low value to track. The history of the source would be visible in Analytics for multi-touch attribution.

 

ROI Reporting 

1. Capture a cost per call either derived from a specific monthly budget or a per call custom cost field

2. Select Save 

 

Google Analytics 

When events are triggered without any visitor data, you can associate some data with the tracking source that will be passed to the Google Analytics event.  Enter the needed information and select Save Changes 

 

GeoContact^®

Dynamically replace website phone numbers based on the geographic location of the website visitor.

• GeoContact replaces a target number on your website with a tracking number that is local to the visitor’s geographic location, which makes your business look local and provides your visitors a phone number that they are comfortable calling. This is a fantastic way to increase call conversions coming from your website, maximizing the return on your global advertising campaigns.  GeoContact first attempts to select a tracking number assigned to this source that matches the visitor’s area code (US and Canada only), then state or region, and finally country. If no matching tracking numbers were found in this tracking source, it selects from the list of default numbers.

Select → Enable to turn on this feature and assign a Default Tracking Number

Select → Save Changes 

Numbers

Select the tracking numbers assigned to this source.

 

Help

Remember to install the tracking code on your site!