Google, through the use of its Google Voice service, allows companies to further bridge the gap between online shopping and in-store results.
The company has recently released a Call Metrics feature within its AdWords product, which helps companies directly link online ad dollars to in-store phone calls. In creating a unique Google Voice number, re-routing to a business line, companies are then able to glean call volume as well as other metrics like call duration. Add this to the growing list of ways in-store data is becoming digitally measured.
Imagine using this in partnership with the goals functionality already present inside Google AdWords – you could almost directly link phone traffic (and online traffic) with any business objective.
While this is currently only accessible for certain advertisers, Google is planning to make this capability more widely available soon. In the meantime, next steps include allowing a location-based, dynamically-created Google Voice number giving users more localized, relevant results. And isn’t that what Google search is all about?
Contributed by: Desereé DeZalia, Integer/Dallas
