Cost per acquisition dropped by 51% thanks to Ruler

About Distract

Distract is a digital marketing agency based in the Midlands that supports a range of clients, from national household names, to regional powerhouses and local start-ups. The Distract team specialises in search, social, digital PR and web and uses its expertise to drive real results through innovative campaigns.

As a partner, Distract utilises Ruler Analytics across a number of its clients to help evidence the impact of their marketing with real-time tracking of inbound calls. We spoke to Tom Jacobs, Head of Advertising, on the impact call monitoring has made to their success internally, and with their clients.

The Challenge

Setting up digital marketing campaigns for clients can only get you so far if you don’t have a full picture of the impact it creates. When setting up a campaign for a business which relied on phone calls to drive sales, the Distract team realised its reporting only went so far.

“For this particular client, we were driving a lot of sessions to the website, but while we could track form submissions via Google Analytics, tracking calls and understanding where they came from was difficult. It left a large hole in our reporting and understanding the real cost per acquisition was tricky. We sought out a call tracking solution and came across Ruler Analytics.

The Solution

Distract implemented Ruler’s tracking code onto the client’s website, alongside dynamic phone numbers to allow them to identify the lead source. From Ruler’s dashboard, Distract can now see true marketing ROI on a client by client basis.

“For us, it’s all about attribution. Being able to provide our clients with accurate cost per lead and accurate lead quantity streamlines our data and our reporting. With Ruler, we can see what’s going on beyond people filling in forms.”

Since then, Distract has utilised Ruler’s call tracking system for tens of clients.

“When we onboard a new client, we look at whether driving calls is a measurement for them. If they are ecommerce, then we can rely on other means of reporting. But for companies like solicitors, or travel agents, then call tracking is essential.

But it goes beyond just benefitting our clients. We use Ruler to optimise our campaigns for clients, which in turn creates data that we can use to build case studies which we’ve won new work on the back of. When we’ve worked with a solicitor’s firm and generated hundreds of inbound calls per month, then that’s very attractive data to use when pitching to a new client. Ruler allows us to prove our performance”

The call tracking data is also fed into Google Analytics where revenue numbers can be placed against marketing channels.

Tom added, “The integration with Google Analytics is an especially useful feature for me. We pull Ruler calls as a goal into Google Analytics. Since we use GA day to day to measure campaign performance, it allows us to quickly adapt to optimise campaigns. But it also means the hard data from Ruler is available in a platform that the client can also access.”

The Results

For one client, the results couldn’t have been clearer. Tom expanded, “Before using Ruler Analytics on our client’s website, we had limited visibility of how many calls were being made as a result of website traffic. Using Ruler, we were able to track over 90 new business calls per month being made from the website, with 3.5% of website visitors making a call. As a result, this cut our CPA by 51% and gave us clarity on the true impact of our activity.”

And the impact of Ruler’s call tracking software hasn’t just benefitted Distract’s clients through marketing optimisation. Tangible data at their fingertips means the Distract team can prove their marketing ROI to their clients too.  
“The impact Ruler Analytics has had on our business has been huge. Aside from call tracking giving us valuable insight into our marketing efforts, and being able to change them quickly using real time analytics, the other main benefit has been advertising result clarity.  

Working with client accounts has an element of unpredictability, as you’re often proving your agency’s ROI alongside the campaign ROI. Using Ruler has allowed us to quantify our efforts and help clients see the bigger picture. It’s great to have real data in your arsenal should tricky conversations ever arise.”

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