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how in the hell does CallRail work? It seems that they can map my browser fingerprint to my phone number. Is it just a gigantic amount of cross referencing and

how in the hell does CallRail work? It seems that they can map my browser fingerprint to my phone number. Is it just a gigantic amount of cross referencing and a large db? Are they doing it just based on timing. Seems crazy to me. I know it is technologically possible, but they have to buying the browser fingerprint info from some other vendor, yes? ninja edit: I get using a forwarding number so you can track how long the calls take, etc. But it seems like they can map the call to the forwarding number to the session on the website.

texasbigdata 7y ago
Not an expert but I've used it before. Think of it like gmail + VOIP put together. When you run an ad on google that incentizes a non-click action (i.e. call us!), to track that result, google randomly generates a phone number (I think) which then gets forwarded to your business. So let's say your widget business is 123-123-1234. When Johnny searches widget, Google will show 123-532-4355 (to track your attribution) then forward that to your real line. What call rail does is insert itself in that path, and basically serve as an inbox and faciliate that. So you can have someone offshore listen to the phone calls (or some other technological method) and say..."hey did this person actually book an appointment?". And then you can track that conversion, and theoretical ROI. I'm sort of misunderstanding the whole value prop of call rail, but this is no more nefarious than using a VOIP with call display and recording everything. If you can bait individuals (by paying Google Ads to place highly) to call you, then yeah, you can sort of figure out who they are right? I think that's the jist of it, just really amped up to make it sound cool.
- viggity 7y ago
  this makes so much more sense. Thank you!
- soared 7y ago
  Your description is correct. You can match keyword bids -> calls -> sales, so it makes it very clear what keywords to spend your marketing budget on. (caveats everywhere of course)
vesrah 7y ago
I was contracted out to a company involved in the addiction rehab sector, they had a very large pool of forwarding numbers and would assign one of those numbers to a GA UserId.

texasbigdata 7y ago

Not an expert but I've used it before. Think of it like gmail + VOIP put together. When you run an ad on google that incentizes a non-click action (i.e. call us!), to track that result, google randomly generates a phone number (I think) which then gets forwarded to your business. So let's say your widget business is 123-123-1234. When Johnny searches widget, Google will show 123-532-4355 (to track your attribution) then forward that to your real line. What call rail does is insert itself in that path, and basically serve as an inbox and faciliate that. So you can have someone offshore listen to the phone calls (or some other technological method) and say..."hey did this person actually book an appointment?". And then you can track that conversion, and theoretical ROI. I'm sort of misunderstanding the whole value prop of call rail, but this is no more nefarious than using a VOIP with call display and recording everything. If you can bait individuals (by paying Google Ads to place highly) to call you, then yeah, you can sort of figure out who they are right? I think that's the jist of it, just really amped up to make it sound cool.

viggity 7y ago
this makes so much more sense. Thank you!
soared 7y ago
Your description is correct. You can match keyword bids -> calls -> sales, so it makes it very clear what keywords to spend your marketing budget on. (caveats everywhere of course)

vesrah 7y ago

I was contracted out to a company involved in the addiction rehab sector, they had a very large pool of forwarding numbers and would assign one of those numbers to a GA UserId.