Invoca adds “missing channel” of phone calls to Salesforce’s Marketing Cloud

Invoca today announced a native integration with Salesforce’s Marketing Cloud, making the phone channel a more complete member of this multi-channel environment.

The addition by the call intelligence provider means that phone numbers can be automatically generated by the platform and added to email marketing campaigns, as well as to web pages.

Invoca creates and reuses unique phone numbers, so that the same number is not in use by different users at the same time. For emails, a marketer can add an Invoca widget to the template for generating the number or can do so via the addition of HTML. The number is actually generated when the email is opened. That number could be dialed after a user sees an email or a web page on a desktop/laptop machine, or it could be the result of a click-to-call link in an email or web page on a mobile device.

Salesforce will now show such info as the caller’s email address, name if known, ad or email that led to the call, any resulting purchases and about a hundred other pieces of data, which are automatically added to the caller’s profile in the customer relationship management system. Brands can also receive a voice-recognized, automatically transcribed record of the phone call’s entire conversation or just a notification about whether certain key phrases — like “Hawaii vacation” — have been used by the caller.

The client company determines which keywords to track and the conditions surrounding the transcribed call, such as whether it is kept in its entirety or whether credit card numbers are blocked out. Invoca VP of Marketing Kyle Christensen pointed out that the customary announcement — “This call may be recorded” — is generally heard at the beginning of an incoming call.

With this call data, a marketer can send a follow-up email campaign to everyone who called about, say, a special rate for a trip to Mexico but hadn’t made a purchase. Call operators can see first-party or third-party data that is immediately displayed when the caller is identified, matched on the fly by caller ID, email address or other linkages.

Although they have often been eclipsed by the rush to digital marketing, phone calls are a major marketing channel. Invoca cites a Google study that says nearly three-quarters of mobile searches end in a phone call, and a BIA Kelsey study that inbound calls convert to revenue as much as 15 times more than web leads.

Christensen said this is the first time phone calls have been detailed to this degree on the platform, with phone-related actions now available at decision points in Journey Builder, Email Studio and other Salesforce tools.

“It’s the missing channel that marketers are ignoring to their detriment,” he told me.

In March, Invoca for Adobe’s Marketing Cloud launched, but it was intended for websites only and not available for campaign marketing. Invoca had previously integrated its platform into Salesforce Sales and Service Clouds, but those implementations were intended to assist outgoing B2B calls in Sales and incoming customer service calls. The Marketing Cloud implementation, Christensen said, is the first that offers phone-related actions in the customer journey.

Here’s a screen shot of phone components in Journey Builder:

About The Author

Barry Levine

Barry Levine covers marketing technology for Third Door Media. Previously, he covered this space as a Senior Writer for VentureBeat, and he has written about these and other tech subjects for such publications as CMSWire and NewsFactor. He founded and led the web site/unit at PBS station Thirteen/WNET; worked as an online Senior Producer/writer for Viacom; created a successful interactive game, PLAY IT BY EAR: The First CD Game; founded and led an independent film showcase, CENTER SCREEN, based at Harvard and M.I.T.; and served over five years as a consultant to the M.I.T. Media Lab. You can find him at LinkedIn, and on Twitter at xBarryLevine.

(Some images used under license from Shutterstock.com.)