Google Voice Applications For Internet Marketing
Is Google finding a way to integrate the tracking of online and offline marketing results?
Many people know that one of the great things about internet marketing is the ease and accuracy with which marketers can track the results of their efforts. With internet marketing, it’s generally not a case of not enough data. It’s more like:
“What in the world do I do with all this data?! What’s relevant for my company?”
But what about businesses that still rely on that antiquated tool – the telephone – to do business? How do you know which marketing activities generate the phone calls? Was it that magazine ad, an internet search, that midtown billboard, or a customer referral? Sure there are ways to track that, but none of them are convenient.
Your trusted, data hungry friends at Google may be working on a solution for at least part of this phone call tracking problem. Using Google Voice, the search engine has begun tracking phone calls that are coming from ALL Google-related internet marketing sources.
Google Voice allows for the creation of a phone number that is not tied to a particular location or phone. Instead, the number is tied to you or your company. The user can also control which phone rings (office, home, mobile, etc.) when someone dials a Google Voice number. A “G-Voice” account is similar to a Gmail account in that it’s portable and more flexible in where, when, and how it can be used.
One of the things that is rumored to be part of Google Voice (which is only available by invitation only at this point) is call tracking. If this is the case, companies would be able to use their Google Voice phone number in various internet marketing mediums to track calls generated from those sources. Two mediums that jump out right away are AdWords Pay-per-click and Google Local Business Center.
Yes, there are PPC management companies that connect sponsored ads to phone numbers. But if Google could provide a way to use that phone number across a variety of online properties, I think it would be quite valuable.
Ease of measuring marketing results is always a good thing in my book.
Get more info about Google Voice from this handy YouTube video.
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