Gaining clarity over the end-to-end customer journey to deliver better experiences, reduce costs, and ramp up revenue
The company
With 44 clinics and counting across the UK, sk:n is the UK’s leading skincare clinic specialising in medical treatments.
From unwanted hair and tattoo removal to mole excision and hair transplant surgery, the brand’s mantra is to inspire confidence through better skin. With a team of highly skilled doctors, nurses and practitioners, sk:n clinics deliver thousands of procedures across the country each year, helping people of all ages to look and feel better. As a Winner at The Aesthetics Awards 2016, sk:n’s services are in high demand, with a significant part of its business being generated by inbound phone calls.
“An incoming phone call is often the first major event in the path to purchase,” says James Morgan, Head of Digital at sk:n. “Most people who call us for the first time will have done plenty of online research, which is why we have so much valuable content, for people with skin conditions, on our site.
“Tying that historical browsing data back to the call gives us powerful metrics that help us improve our messaging, and make our campaigns more relevant and meaningful to both new and existing sk:n customers.”
Why Infinity?
Before using Infinity, sk:n had already identified the need to add call tracking to their metrics, and decided to try out Google Call Conversions (GCC). Monitoring the success of PPC ads generating inbound calls initially worked well, but when it came to accessing more incisive data, sk:n started hitting stumbling blocks.
“We needed greater insight as to where our calls were coming from,” says James, “and wanted to feed that information into our reporting on call volumes by traffic source. We wanted something simple and cost effective that would help us achieve this goal. Being free and easy to use, GCC seemed like a logical option. It provided some basic metrics relating to the success of our AdWords campaigns, and we could track calls down to the keyword, which we thought was pretty impressive.”
Over the next few weeks, sk:n realised that what they had implemented was a useful introductory product showcasing the immanent power of call tracking, but without the full range of integrations and multi-channel analysis capabilities they really needed. While sk:n had managed to graft a new layer of visibility onto its existing metrics using GCC, they found they were still a way off gaining the level of visibility required to maximise the value of its inbound calls.
“There were things we wanted to do that just couldn’t be done with GCC,” says James. “And we realised that to get the depth and breadth we wanted, we would need to step outside of the Google ecosystem.
“We needed to make an argument for additional marketing budget across multiple marketing channels, not just paid search. Because email channel analysis is a big focus for us, we turned to Infinity, which has the ability to track caller data from different sources, including email. Analysing this information has helped with clearer customer segmentation and better optimization of our campaigns.
The outcome
Today, sk:n’s marketing department uses Infinity and the robust metrics it provides to help justify budget increases for spending across marketing channels—beyond paid search. At the top of the list of channels the company was keen to link with calls was their email marketing campaigns.
“When we send an email it’s genuinely useful to see how many calls it generates. Cross-referencing the email content with the call data gives us a clear window into what’s working and what isn’t. We can use this information to increase resources around the email campaigns driving the most calls. The data Infinity provides shows us what’s making the phone ring, and also provides clues as to why.”
But, James clarifies, it’s not just about increasing the number of calls coming in, it’s about discovering new ways to improve the email content to encourage more relevant, higher value calls. Identifying which email campaigns are doing well and which ones aren’t gaining any traction has helped us to fine-tune our key messaging, improve engagement and increase sales and retention.
Knowing where our return on advertising spend is working best is a truly beneficial insight and has become one of our most vital metrics
James Morgan | Head of Digital, Sk:n
Calls for Clarity
“Using Infinity call tracking to gain clarity on our data, and subsequently improve campaign strategy, has been a key focus for us. Because every campaign is segmented according to potential and existing customer actions, such as whether they showed interest or clicked through to book a consultation for one of our many skin treatments, it’s important to know which emails work best at inspiring action that leads to call conversions.”
Breaking barriers – calls up 155%
Dynamic website numbers provided by Infinity enable sk:n to track its inbound calls from many different sources, including email, SEO, PPC, social platforms, directories and affiliates. Having a holistic overview of the different channels, and using the data from those channels to examine, adapt and manage campaigns has had a measurable, positive effect on the business.
Comparing data from January 2016 to January 2017, as a result of a better understanding of the interplay between online browsing behavior and inbound phone calls, sk:n enjoyed a 155% upsurge in unique qualified calls. Knowing the specifics of which channels were driving the calls has led to improved analysis, attribution and campaign development.
“The data helps us to understand call volumes and where extra attention is needed,” says James. “It’s handy to use the Infinity reports to see where people were on the site before they made a call; it helps us know if those pages are truly converting or need changing.”
Reducing costs and ramping up revenue
Sk:n also found out from their data that existing clients were using brand-related searches to perform simple tasks, such as change appointment times, which was unnecessarily driving up PPC costs.
“Discovering this enabled us to scale back PPC spend on those brand-related terms, which had an immediate positive effect. PPC instigated calls are now down 20%, something that’s saved us money without negatively impacting our revenue.
Other things sk:n has done recently include integrating with Marin bid management software, and setting up Google Business Listings linked to Infinity fixed numbers.
“Using Marin alongside Infinity, we’re able to bid-manage sk:n’s PPC campaigns more accurately, based on which keywords generate calls. This has increased the number of high value calls we get. And our new Google Listings, in January 2017, brought in 45% of our calls. This high degree of visibility, combined with the streamlined metrics and versatility we get through Infinity have quickly become key business drivers for us.”
Taken together, these changes have helped sk:n lower their operational costs by a significant margin. Helping further still, using call pattern analysis the company has been able to identify when the call centre is busiest, and put more staff on the phones during those periods. This has simultaneously reduced caller-waiting times and improved overall customer satisfaction.
Unique ID
Another key benefit of Infinity’s call tracking capabilities is the use of a caller ID that acts as a gateway into the wider data world.
Having the caller data sitting side by side with other key data shows us how much customers have spent or potentially will spend on our treatments and products,” says James. “Knowing where our return on advertising spend is working best is a truly beneficial insight and has become one of our most vital metrics. It’s these things Infinity provides that enable us to optimise our marketing strategies, streamline our efficiencies and continually refine our outcomes.
James Morgan | Head of Digital, Sk:n
