Dynamic Number Insertion: How It Works and What Can Go Wrong

If you want to track the source of leads that are generated when people call you from your website, you could use a single call tracking number that would help you track all calls that were placed from your website. But that only solves half the problem. You would know that call came from someone visiting your website, but this would still leave the mystery unsolved of where they came from before they landed on your site. To answer that question, you need to implement Dynamic Number Insertion (DNI) call tracking.

What is DNI?

Dynamic Number Insertion is a call tracking technology that helps you track the source of individual callers. It works by assigning an individual number to each of your website’s visitors and logging data about where that visitor came from.

How do you use DNI?

When you are setting up DNI, you purchase multiple phone numbers. This is called a phone number pool. You’ll need enough numbers so that each visitor on your site can be assigned his or her own number. The amount of numbers you need depends on the how many people visit your website during your busiest hours and how often your DNI vendor releases numbers when users are idle. During setup, you also install a small block of code on your website that triggers DNI to work when someone visits your site.

When users come to your site, the DNI system searches for the phone number that is on your website and replaces it with a number from the phone number pool. When the visitor calls you, DNI systems use caller ID to try to identify who they are and report back the name of the person associated with that phone number if available. After the person hangs up, the phone number is released and made available to be assigned to another site visitor. The system will also release phone numbers back into the system if users have been on your website but haven’t closed their browser after a certain amount of time which varies from DNI vendor to vendor.

What can go wrong with DNI?

While marketers value the benefit of DNI because it helps them make better decisions about which marketing sources to invest in, some business owners are opposed to any call tracking because there are some limitations risks.

First, some business owners use vanity number and display letters instead of numbers, e.g. 212-876-TAXI. DNI systems only recognize numbers, so they can’t be used when you display phone numbers on your site with non-numeric characters. If you are unwilling to change text character to numeric characters, DNI won’t work for you.

Second, if you stop using dynamic number insertion, you will want to end the expense of your DNI service and cancel your phone numbers. Once you do, they won’t work, so anyone who visited your site and wrote down one of the tracking phone numbers that’s cancelled won’t be able to reach you if they call. Since most people look up numbers in real time, this is unlikely to happen frequently. However, most companies that use DNI also purchase single tracking numbers to track activity from third party sites or advertising sources. If you do this you’ll need to remind yourself to revert to the original number in any place you may have added paid tracking numbers when you cancel service.

Third, if you experience a surge in website traffic, you can run out of available phone numbers in your pool which will affect your lead tracking. In this case, your site’s main phone number will display and the calls will work, but you won’t be able to track calls when this happens. If you are introducing a new advertising campaign on Facebook, Google or other advertising platform, make sure to take into consideration the increase in traffic you expect and purchase more tracking numbers if necessary.

Interested in learning more about Jess’s Dynamic Number Insertion service? Jess Phone Call Tracking is quick and easy to set up—start a free trial today!