The point of marketing is to get the sale. Marketing often crosses channels — people will see a tv ad, and then check out a website — or see something on Facebook and decide to stop into a store. The same is true of email marketing — it often drives phone calls. These phone calls are often very high quality leads and so should be attributed as a success metric for the email marketing that generated them. Marketo has a great article with more detail on why phone calls are important and what metrics to look at…
Inbound phone leads are different. A 2012 BIA Kelsey Group study found that inbound callers are 10 times more likely to make a purchase than leads that simply clicked a link. That’s because leads that call you are most often further along in the buying process and ready to engage with a sales rep. So even if your email campaigns only generate a low volume of inbound calls compared to clicks and downloads, the calls are the leads that most often translate to revenue. Therefore, these leads are the ones marketers most need to track.
Failing to account for the sales pipeline and revenue from these inbound calls does a big disservice to your email campaigns. This practice also falsely deflates the ROI metrics you present to your executive team. — Why You Should Include Phone Calls in Your Email Performance Metrics by Blair Symes
