Philadelphia retailer John Wanamaker once said, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” 

And truthfully, it’s probably more for many businesses. 

Years ago, it was common for healthcare providers to ask, “How did you hear about us?” when you called to schedule an appointment or ask a question.

Though well-intentioned, this first step toward identifying the best marketing channel for your business relied solely—and heavily—on front office personnel.

Manual call tracking is time-consuming and often requires follow-up questions. For example, if the patient responds with something like “Facebook” or “an online ad,” it’s important to ask them to identify the specific ad, so your staff can attribute the call to the correct marketing campaign in the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. 

For these reasons and more, manual call tracking for healthcare often falls to the bottom of the priority list in favor of other high-priority tasks, like scheduling appointments.

The good news is that you can quickly identify top-performing campaigns/channels and maximize your marketing spend using technologies such as call tracking software and their robust analytics platforms.

What is Call Tracking for Healthcare?

Call tracking software helps you identify which marketing campaign or tactic drove the phone call and what the result of the call was. 

For example, healthcare businesses implementing call tracking can tell which ads, web pages, and even keywords effectively drive more phone calls.

Moreover, call tracking software employs conversational analytics to help businesses analyze the actual conversation and identify whether the patient scheduled an appointment, asked about a specific ad or promotion, or inquired about particular services.

Once you know which campaigns are converting, you can shift marketing resources away from mediocre campaigns, maximize your marketing spend, and more accurately calculate return on investment (ROI).

How Does Call Tracking Work?

Cloud-based call tracking software helps healthcare marketers connect their patient’s digital journey to phone calls and conversions using trackable phone numbers.

Trackable phone numbers are unique local, toll-free, or vanity phone numbers that are applied to a specific marketing campaign (e.g., organic and paid search, landing page, newsletter, billboard, etc.). When prospective patients dial these trackable numbers, calls are transparently connected to your office, and all important call data is automatically added to an online dashboard.

The call tracking software reports caller ID, the number, date, time, call duration, and other details, so you know exactly when and how many people called in response to your ad(s)—24 hours a day.

Dynamic trackable phone numbers can also track individual callers from your website. This call tracking technology is called dynamic number insertion. It assigns a unique phone number to each site visitor (per website session) and automatically logs data about where that visitor came from.

Call tracking for healthcare can and should also be combined with online form and live chat tracking. Tracking online form submissions delivers key insights into the customer journey. It can help identify which marketing campaigns the patient or potential patient interacted with before and after they submitted the form.

Integrating live chat tracking has also become increasingly important as 41% of consumers prefer live chat support, versus 32% who prefer phone support. Tracking these text-based communications ensures you’re not missing a big part of the puzzle.

The Benefits of Inbound Call Tracking for Healthcare

It’s essential to bridge the gap between online and offline to get the most accurate picture of your marketing campaign performance across different channels.

Call tracking software helps healthcare businesses understand which campaigns inspire phone calls with the intent to schedule an appointment. It also helps healthcare marketers gain a clear understanding of each touch-point along the patient journey. 

When combined with other sales and CRM tools, trackable phone numbers allow healthcare businesses to:

Accurately gather marketing conversion dataTrack ROI from your marketing campaigns (online and offline)Monitor campaign effectivenessGet credit for all phone conversions (inquiries) your marketing drivesIdentify which channels provide leads with the highest conversion ratesIdentify and use common phrases from conversations to improve marketing messagingOptimize media spend to drive higher-quality leads Train medical staff to convert patients more effectivelyImprove call conversion rates by tracking and optimizing sales agent performance 

Leverage Call Tracking for Healthcare Training to Optimize Your Sales & Marketing

Several call tracking tools are available to track inbound patient calls accurately, automatically, and consistently. At Healthcare Success, we most often partner with CallRail. It’s intuitive and can integrate with over 700 marketing tools, including leading CRM software tools such as LeadSquared, HubSpot, and Salesforce.

When your healthcare teams can see exactly where their calls are coming from, who’s calling, and if they are a previous lead in real-time, they can execute a more effective conversation.

You can then use this data to identify training needs for your staff, ensuring your customers receive the highest quality patient experience possible.

CallRail records the actual calls for better customer service and training. They also automatically share appropriate disclosures with callers, though you may have to take additional steps to ensure you don’t violate any HIPAA guidelines.

A dedicated phone number for each marketing campaign moves the tracking responsibility off your front desk staff or call center. It also eliminates human errors (e.g., forgetting to ask marketing questions, failing to add information to the CRM, misreporting data, etc.).

With call tracking for doctors, practices, and hospitals, you’ll get real-time performance results and ROI for your marketing efforts.

Get Started with Call Tracking for Healthcare

We hope this brief guide to call tracking for healthcare has answered most of your questions. Before integrating any call tracking software into your marketing strategy, it’s important to understand your immediate and long-term needs and implement a call tracking solution that can scale to fit the needs of your growing business.

When used in combination with comprehensive SEO and paid search strategies, call tracking can help drive more high-quality patient leads to your healthcare business and increase your revenue.

Call Healthcare Success today to find out why call tracking for doctors is just one of the many things we do to help move the needle on your business.