Last week, call tracking and analytics provider Ifbyphone announced not one, but two major milestones. First, the company announced that it has raised $30 million in series E funding — bringing its total funding to $60 million. It also announced the acquisition of call tracking provider Mongoose Metrics.

With the infusion and acquisition, we asked the company where it’s headed next.

“We will focus on what we have always done: developing the most innovative products, providing the best customer experience in the industry, and expanding our organization to support our growing list of clients,” said Steve Griffiths, Vice President of Marketing and Product Strategy at Ifbyphone. “With the Mongoose Metrics’ team at our side, we are well positioned to do so.”

The Ifbyphone platform is designed to help businesses drive, track, analyze and route phone calls to the most appropriate sales rep to convert them into revenue. The company has been providing call-based marketing technology solutions for SMBs and the agencies that serve them since its launch in 2005.

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SMBs are looking for their phones to ring and their doors to open, pure and simple. These cash register-related activities largely sway their perceptions of online marketing campaign effectiveness. Kenshoo Local, a division of SEM provider Kenshoo, aims to specifically meet these needs via an integration with Mongoose Metrics call-tracking platform. Using the platform, agencies and IYPs will be able to connect online clicks to offline call conversions for their local clients. 

Todd Herrold, Kenshoo’s director of product marketing, told BIA/Kelsey that this partnership differs from normal call tracking mechanisms. It focuses on ID’ing the most effective keywords that convert into calls, not simply amassing a high volume of clicks in hopes that the phone will ring. Marketing campaigns can then be adjusted to pinpoint an “optimal bid” by distilling those keywords that are delivering calls from those that aren’t.

Here’s how it works: Mongoose Metrics offers a “session-based DNR,” or Dynamic Number Replacement, that assigns each Web site user a distinct call-tracking number after he or she clicks through on a search ad. They are also served a “keyword identifier” by Kenshoo Local. After the business is called by the user, keywords and search queries are matched to the number and identifier. The matching is based on an algorithm that probes call duration to determine call value, then circles back to the keywords that drove the calls. Keyword choices can be modified based on results.

An open API allows Kenshoo Local to connect directly with Mongoose Metrics to utilize the call-tracking solution. Its partners can then view their clients’ call-tracking reports within Kenshoo’s interface. 

The partnership marks Kenshoo’s latest penetration into the local advertising market. The SEM company, which launched in 2006, moved up market from smaller agencies to global firms and international brands (Wal-Mart, Sears, Travelocity). It introduced Kenshoo Local at ILM:09 last December to scale its SEM technology platform to IYPs that need efficient, cost-effective tools to manage droves of SMB campaigns.

Kenshoo Local General Manager Sivan Metzger noted that Kenshoo is a “technology-only play” that doesn’t do “fulfillment for SMBs.” The company focuses on building out its platform for partners to bring added value and accountability to their clients, not managing SEM programs for SMBs directly. 

Next steps for Kenshoo include building comprehensive quality-of-call data that identify the value of sales, as well as adding voice recognition software that mines calls for keywords that activate higher-quality calls. Metzger is speaking at DMS ’10 in Dallas next week, where Kenshoo plans to make a big announcement, he says.

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