News & Views | Infinity

How call data & GA4 supercharges your knowledge of customer journeys

Written by Andy Vale | Mar 14, 2023 9:00:00 AM

Salt and pepper. Peanut butter and jelly. Infinity and GA4. Some things in life just go together perfectly. In the digital age, customer journeys are increasingly complex, and they happen across many platforms, both online and offline. And with the advent of a cookie-less world, it’s getting tougher.

Enter, Google Analytics 4 (GA4). Charting the customer journey is a challenge, but Google is determined to help marketers and businesses stay ahead of the curve. And so are we. Which is why we're proud to offer one of the most advanced complementary GA4 integrations around.

In this blog, we’ll explain how by combining Infinity’s call tracking tools with your GA4, you’re able to supercharge your understanding of customer journeys and make every moment matter, for your call agents, for your customers, and for your bottom-line.

 

What is GA4?

In case you missed it, Google is bidding farewell to Universal Analytics in July 2023 to make way for GA4, the next generation of digital analytics which focuses on tracking individual users and events – which ties in beautifully with call tracking data – instead of just user sessions.

While it might feel like a big change, GA4 is also a huge step forward for customer-centric businesses. It offers machine learning about the way your customers interact with your business across platforms, it provides a new data model that can give you the data you want, when you want it, and it focuses on giving you more data about the entire lifecycle of your customer journey.

All of this is instrumental in improving your knowledge of your customers and the journey they take. Google has said this is a "next-generation approach to privacy-first tracking, x-channel measurement, and AI-based predictive data". This holistic view of the customer journey is great for everyone, but it’s even better for Infinity customers.

 

What’s the difference between GA4 and Universal Analytics?  

The most important difference is that Universal Analytics is web focused, while GA4 ties together and tracks consumer behaviour across mobile, desktop, and apps. Alongside a host of other benefits, this switch to a more customer-centric approach in data collection can help you make smarter, more strategic marketing decisions. 

GA4 also addresses the challenges that have been brought on by increasingly fewer cookies. By paying attention to event-based tracking, as you may already do with call tracking, you can focus on the user journey across platforms and accurately track your customers from first visit to the moment they pick up the phone and make a purchase.

 

What are the benefits of using call data in GA4? 

GA4 brings a lot of wonderful data to the table for marketers, but if you’re not integrating call data into your tracking, you’re not seeing the full picture.  

Believe us when we say, the full picture is important for bottom line. According to one study, inbound calls are worth up to 10 times more than a lead generation form, and PPC phone leads are three times more likely to convert.  

Overall, customers are more likely to purchase from brands that are focused on delivering frictionless, relevant, and more personalised customer journeys. Here are just a few of the benefits of integrating call data with GA4: 

  • Gain a deeper understanding of your PPC performance, by understanding which keywords led to your customer picking up the phone 
  • Understand your customers across touchpoints, with a complete view of the customer lifecycle online, and how that converts into offline calls 
  • Prevent data fragmentation and reduce friction with customer-centric insights, whether that’s logging which landing page they came from or analysing conversations at scale to extract concerns and FAQs 
  • Cross-reference GA4 data and call data to better understand churn, changes in customer demand and spending patterns, and how your customers are feeling 
  • Benefit from GA4’s enhanced data reports that show acquisition, engagement, and monetisation by also tracking call-related data such as value of call, time spent on call, and other valuable data points that can enhance your ROI 
  • Make the new Explorations tool even more efficient by layering user activity and online behaviour with call data, showing you exactly what led to a call

 

How do call data and GA4 work together? 

Phone calls are one of the key touchpoints in the customer journey and the data you can collect contains a wealth of insights that will allow you to develop your understanding of your customer AND highlight which marketing activities generate the best returns.  

With our new GA4 integration, you’ll be able to effortlessly track the full visitor journey and get even more granular intel on when your customers pick up the phone to you. 

 You’ll understand precisely which campaigns, channels and keywords are driving your most valuable calls and generating sales. That means, whether you’re looking to reduce cost or increase revenue, the data you gather from our call tracking and Conversation Analytics technology will send call and goal actions into your GA4 account. With tailored insights at your fingertips, you’ll be able to truly understand how your campaigns are performing and adjust accordingly.  

That’s not all. Infinity also integrates seamlessly with GA4’s new event-based tracking. You can add calls as one of their new ‘Event Parameters,’ giving context and clarity to your analytics. With this new integration, you can add up to 25 custom parameters to quantify the key details of your lead, providing a comprehensive view of the online behaviour that drives valuable call conversions.  

Ready to get started with integrating Infinity and GA4? If you're already an Infinity client, speak to your Customer Success Manager or drop us an email at support@infinity.co and we'll help get you set up.