The Cordwainer CallRail Performance Issues

Overview

During the ^[1] marketing onboarding call, the team identified that the existing CallRail implementation was providing negligible value and actively creating lead misattribution risk. The decision was made to disable dynamic number insertion as an immediate corrective action.

Current State

CallRail was set up by the previous agency as part of their Google Ads tracking workflow. The implementation uses dynamic number insertion (DNI), which rotates phone numbers on the website so that calls can be attributed to specific traffic sources or campaigns.

In practice, the system is not functioning as intended:

Volume: Fewer than 5 genuine leads per month are captured via phone
Call composition: The majority of calls logged are internal staff calls or people Googling the main number for general purposes
Reporting value: The weekly CallRail reports are considered a low-value activity by the client team — not worth the time to review

"We don't get that many… it's almost like a waste of time because it's mostly just employees calling or somebody just Googling us to get our phone number. It's not real leads coming in for the most part. Occasionally there's a lead, but less than five a month, if that."
— Bodo Liesenfeld

The Misattribution Risk

Dynamic number insertion creates a specific attribution problem that compounds the low-volume issue. When a visitor sees a rotated tracking number on the website and writes it down to call later, that number may be reassigned by the time they call. The call either fails to connect correctly or is attributed to the wrong source entirely.

This means CallRail is not only failing to capture meaningful data — it may be actively corrupting whatever attribution data does exist.

Google Ads Context

CallRail's primary legitimate use case is tracking calls that originate from Google Ads call extensions, where a unique number appears directly in the ad and a call can be cleanly attributed to that ad click. However:

The Cordwainer's Google Ads campaigns have been paused due to poor ROI (see ^[2])
Without active ad call extensions, there is no meaningful source differentiation to track
The cost-per-click was already high, suggesting the campaigns were not well-optimized regardless of tracking fidelity

Action Items

[ ] Disable dynamic number insertion on The Cordwainer website — Asymmetric to handle once WordPress access is obtained
[ ] Obtain CallRail account access from the previous agency (Sixth City) during the transition call, or request the previous agency disable DNI directly
[ ] Revert website to displaying the primary business phone number statically

Broader Pattern

This situation is a common outcome when call tracking tools are implemented as part of an agency's reporting infrastructure rather than as a genuine client need. The tool persists after its usefulness has ended because the client lacks visibility into what it does or how to turn it off.

When evaluating call tracking for any client, confirm:
1. Are paid campaigns with call extensions actively running?
2. Is call volume high enough to make source attribution meaningful?
3. Does the client team actually use the reports?

If the answer to all three is no, DNI adds risk without benefit and should be removed.

^[3]
^[4]
^[5]