Call tracking

Many patients still prefer to call, especially for a first visit or anything involving money. Without call tracking, those bookings appear in no marketing report, so the channels that make the phone ring look weaker than they are. The phone is the oldest marketing channel and still the one that keeps the fewest receipts.

A dental practice running search ads and a mailer might find that most new patient calls come from the mailer it nearly cancelled.

• Each source gets its own number: one for search ads, one for the Google Business Profile, one for the mailer.
• On the website, the number shown changes to match how the visitor arrived, often called dynamic number insertion.
• Calls forward to the clinic's main line, so patients reach the same team whichever number they dialled.
• Each call is logged with its source, time and length, plus the outcome where the team records it.

Shops have done the analogue version for years with coupon codes. A flyer gets one code and a newspaper ad another, and the till shows which one brought people through the door.

Call tracking stops at the phone call: you know the source and that the phone rang. Closed-loop attribution carries the source on to the booking, the visit and the revenue, across calls, forms and chats. Most clinics start with call tracking and add the rest of the loop later.