Marketing Pilgrim

The Google Analytics team gave out advice on how to track telephone leads and live chats using Google Analytics in a blog post today.

Google teams up with Mongoose Metrics to allow users to track offline phone calls. Mongoose Metrics provides toll free numbers extremely cheap. GA is able to track calls to the toll free number by assigning that number to a hidden web page on your site containing your GA tracking code. Jeff Gillis from the GA team explains how it works:

When a phone call to the tracking number is connected, the technology will place a web browser visit to your hidden tracking web page and in this way insert the phone call event back into your Google Analytics account. Each phone call generates a unique visit which is clearly labeled inside of Analytics

For tracking live chats, GA teams up with Live Person. Live Person allows Web site owners to interact with their customers via a chat system on their site. Live Person created a GA integration that allows users to track conversions after chat, and also the following GA data:

• Map Overlay Report which displays volume and quality metrics of live chat interactions by geographic region
• Search Engines Report: Reveals the sources and keywords that drive interactive chats (and resulting conversions)
• Reverse Goal Path Report: Lists the navigation paths that lead to the most chats

GA is a great free analytics platform, and these features demonstrate its effectiveness. For most businesses being able to get this level of detail from a free platform is phenomenal. Make sure you are always getting the most out of whatever analytics package you are using. Conversion tracking should always be a priority.

What other types of offline conversions would you like to see tracking for?