

Disclaimer: The correct call attribution model may help marketers better understand their customers’ journeys and enhance ROAI.
Affiliates, marketing partners, and advertisers are all seeking cheap quality leads to be able to earn higher commissions. To achieve their goals, they have to be aware of the call attribution types to make sure their ad campaigns provide them with a high return on investment.
What is call attribution?
Call attribution is the way of tracking inbound calls by assigning a unique virtual number to each traffic channel. There are three types of call attribution that will be described below.
Note: As we talk specifically about call tracking ad campaigns, the terminology will be different from the common marketing attribution models you might have heard about (first touch, last touch, multi-touch attribution).
Why do marketers need call attribution?
Performance marketers need call attribution to understand which of the online ad channels is the most productive in terms of the number of calls generated and which campaigns need to be optimized or totally dismissed. If you are new to the sphere of affiliate marketing, check out our most recent post to get a general understanding of call tracking.
An ideal situation for any business is a customer that visits the site, dials the contact number, and places an order. Unfortunately, only a small percentage of customers behave like that. Others will visit the website and a social media page, consult a review platform, or Google the rating of the company. If the product a customer is looking for is pricey, the above-mentioned process will be iterated for a couple of months. How should marketers understand the best performers out of their ad campaigns? Was it a Google ad, a user-friendly website design, or a concise landing page that played the critical role in converting a lead? Call attribution models are intended to provide a solution to this question. If a marketer understands the logic of their customers’ journey in detail, it will allow them to allocate ad budgets reasonably.
Campaign-level call attribution model
This is the easiest model. It shows the number of inbound calls generated by a certain campaign. When somebody calls, you know they have come from the banner, or a paid Google ad, that you assigned a virtual phone number to. It is easy to set up and use. However, it does not provide marketers with deep analytical data. You can’t explain what happened before your consumer discovered the banner or what the original request was. If you are running several campaigns, the data on the number of calls is insufficient for proper optimization.
Pros:
- Easy customization
- Easy monitoring
Cons:
- Limited analytical data
- No possibilities for optimization
Session-level call attribution model
This model offers more detailed information. For example, you tie a call to the paid keyword, so you can trace the whole browsing activity of a lead that happened afterwards. With this type of attribution, marketers analyze the customer journey and optimize their campaigns accordingly. For instance, they can change the wording in the paid ad to target the exact pain of a client or improve the functionality of a landing page to speed up the conversion process. However, a session-level type is limited in time. It provides the information for an hour or two. Thus, if a customer gets back to your offer later in the working day, the session will be terminated.
Pros:
- Deep analytics
- Possibility to improve campaigns
Cons:
- Time limitations
Visitor-level call attribution model
This model is the best in terms of the available data. It shows the whole way of a customer’s interaction with your brand. Analyzing this model, marketers can not only enhance their campaigns but also make a significant contribution to the portrait of a target customer and expand globally with minimum risks. On the flip side, this may turn out to be a quest for inexperienced marketers to use this model. It requires careful settings of the analytical metrics as well as third-party platforms and systems to gain all the necessary information.
Pros:
- Full customer review
- Scalability
Cons:
- Integration challenges
Choosing the appropriate attribution model ensures proper use of the call tracking software. It will lead to greater performance results and overall job satisfaction for marketing professionals. If you would like to try exploring the attribution types of Dialics, there is an opportunity to start a free trial here.
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Are those attribution models available at Dialics?
Hello, Dan.
Yes, they are. You can request a demo at https://dialics.com/demo/ to see how everything works.
Thank you for a clear explanation.
Hi, Oliver.
We are glad to be helpful!