Telmetrics developed a mobile call-tracking analytics platform that the company plans to release Monday. The platform -- m.Call -- reports on all calls generated by mobile search ads and mobile banner ads. Rather than just counting click-to-call events, such as the number of mobile users who click on the mobile "call" button, the platform provides the duration of the call and demographics.
Since the tool relies on digital tracking IDs to connect calls, it eliminates the need for hundreds or thousands of unique call-tracking phone numbers. A plug-in provides a unique tracking ID linked to advertiser phone numbers or call buttons in each ad.
Capturing call-tracking data through m.Call eliminates the need to replace business phone numbers in ads with call-tracking numbers. Today, the platform works for calls on Android phones, but the company plans to release the platform for Apple iOS and Windows Mobile in the coming months.
Telmetrics CEO Bill Dinan said this type of tracking makes it more cost-effective to increase the number of campaigns and measure each because it provides a solid line from the click to the call. "Look at adoption rates," he said. "About 50% of calls I get come from mobile phones."
Expect U.S. mobile ad spending to reach $2.5 billion in 2014 -- up from 743 million in 2010, according to eMarketer. This includes display, search and message-based advertising.
Consumers continue to increase their use of mobile devices. On Friday, Shashi Seth, senior vice president of search products at Yahoo, told investors on a call hosted by Macquarie Securities analyst Ben Schachter that mobile search now makes up 20% of searches globally for Yahoo. In regions such as Indonesia, 80% of all searches on Yahoo come from mobile devices.
While m.Call delivers a unique platform to track calls from mobile phones, more platform providers will focus on developing and releasing tools to track calls coming from search, display and video mobile ads.