7 Metrics That Reveal Your Best (and Worst) Call Publishers
You're buying calls from five publishers. Maybe ten. Maybe twenty. Each one charges you per call, and each one swears their traffic is the best. But are they? Without per-publisher metrics, you're paying for calls in the dark—unable to tell which sources drive revenue and which ones drain your budget with junk calls that never convert.
The Publisher Accountability Problem
Most dialers treat all inbound calls the same—they land in a queue, an agent picks up, and that's it. There's no way to trace a call back to the publisher who sent it. AgentTech is different. Every publisher gets a dedicated Publisher Queue with its own SIP address, meaning every call is tagged to its source from the moment it arrives. That's the foundation that makes all seven metrics below possible.
How Publisher Queues Enable Per-Source Tracking
In AgentTech, each publisher you work with gets their own Publisher Queue. This isn't just a label—it's a full routing entry point with a dedicated SIP address (e.g., publisher-42-mediaco@sip.agenttech.io), its own billing configuration, and its own routing rules to your internal agent queues.
What This Means for Reporting
Because every call enters through a publisher-specific queue, AgentTech's reporting engine can break down every metric by publisher. You can group by publisher as a reporting dimension alongside agent, queue, agency, disposition, time period, and more.
Dimensions: publisher, agent, queue, agency, state, disposition, hour, day, week, monthMetrics: total_calls, answered_calls, billable_calls, sales_completed, total_cost, avg_duration, conversion_rate, cpa, answer_rate, compliance_pass_rate
With that foundation in place, here are the seven metrics you should be tracking for every publisher.
1. Answer Rate
The Question It Answers
What percentage of this publisher's calls actually reach an agent?
Answer rate is the most basic quality signal. If a publisher is sending calls when your agents aren't available—or sending calls that hit your IVR and hang up—you're wasting money before the conversation even starts.
In AgentTech, group your reports by publisher and look at the answer_rate metric. A publisher with a 90%+ answer rate is timing their calls well. One sitting at 50% either isn't checking your availability API or is flooding you at peak times without regard for your agent capacity.
2. Average Handle Time
The Question It Answers
Are this publisher's calls substantive conversations or short junk?
Average duration tells you whether calls are real conversations or quick hang-ups. But the real power is in the duration thresholds. AgentTech tracks calls_over_5min, calls_over_10min, calls_over_20min, and more—all broken down by publisher.
If Publisher A has an average handle time of 8 minutes but Publisher B averages 2 minutes, that's not just a quality difference—it's a cost difference. Those 2-minute calls are consuming agent time without producing results.
3. Conversion & Disposition Rate
The Question It Answers
Which publishers drive sales vs. which ones send tire-kickers?
This is the metric that separates good publishers from great ones. By grouping reports by publisher + disposition, you can see exactly how each source's calls are being dispositioned by your agents—Sale, No Sale, Not Interested, Callback, Wrong Number, and so on.
AgentTech's conversion_rate and sales_completed metrics make this straightforward. A publisher sending 500 calls a week with a 2% conversion rate is delivering 10 sales. One sending 200 calls with an 8% conversion rate is delivering 16 sales from less than half the volume.
4. Compliance Pass Rate
The Question It Answers
Is this publisher sending leads that put you at compliance risk?
AgentTech's AI transcription engine scores every call for compliance—checking for Medicare regulation adherence, proper disclosures, TCPA compliance, and more. The compliance_pass_rate metric tells you what percentage of a publisher's calls pass compliance scoring.
A publisher with a low compliance pass rate might be sending calls from misleading ads, targeting ineligible consumers, or routing calls that trigger compliance violations on your end. This metric catches those patterns before they become regulatory problems.
Compliance Red Flag Example
Publisher C sends 300 calls/week with a 68% compliance pass rate.
Your other publishers average 94%.
Action: Investigate the source of Publisher C's traffic. Their ads or pre-qualification process may be setting false expectations, causing agents to make statements that trigger compliance flags.
5. Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)
The Question It Answers
How much does each sale actually cost from this publisher?
CPA is where AgentTech's Publisher Queue billing configuration pays for itself. Each Publisher Queue has built-in billing settings: cost per call, a billable-after-seconds threshold (so you're not charged for 5-second hang-ups), and a billable-only-if-answered toggle.
With these settings configured per publisher, AgentTech automatically calculates your true CPA: total_cost / sales_completed. No spreadsheets required.
Built-In Publisher Billing
6. Billable vs. Non-Billable Calls
The Question It Answers
How much of this publisher's volume are you actually paying for?
Not every call should cost you money. With AgentTech's billing thresholds, calls that don't meet your criteria (unanswered, under your minimum duration) aren't billable. The ratio of billable_calls to total_calls per publisher tells you how much waste each source generates.
A publisher where 95% of calls are billable is sending well-targeted traffic. One where only 60% are billable is padding their volume with calls that never should have been routed to you.
7. Revenue Per Call
The Question It Answers
What is each publisher actually worth per call after costs?
This is the metric that ties everything together. Revenue per call combines conversion rates, average deal value, and cost data to give you a single number: the net value of each call from each publisher.
By combining AgentTech's disposition-based revenue tracking with per-publisher cost data, you can rank your publishers not by volume or even by conversion rate alone, but by actual dollar value per call. This is the number that should drive your publisher strategy.
Putting It Into Action
Having the data is only half the battle. Here's how to use these seven metrics to optimize your publisher mix:
Reward Top Performers
Publishers with high conversion rates and strong compliance scores deserve more volume. In AgentTech, lower their ping delay to 0 seconds so they see agent availability instantly—giving them first priority over other publishers.
Deprioritize Underperformers
Publishers with low conversion rates but acceptable quality can be deprioritized by increasing their ping delay. A 30-second or 60-second delay means they only see agents who've been idle—your premium publishers get first pick.
Renegotiate Rates
Armed with CPA and revenue-per-call data, you have the leverage to renegotiate. If a publisher's CPA is $85 but their competitors deliver at $55, you have a concrete reason to ask for a lower rate—or walk.
Cut the Dead Weight
Publishers with consistently low answer rates, poor compliance, and high CPA should be deactivated. In AgentTech, it's a single toggle—switch the Publisher Queue to inactive and their calls stop flowing immediately.
Key Takeaways
- Publisher Queues give each source a dedicated SIP entry point, enabling per-publisher tracking across all metrics
- Answer rate and handle time reveal call quality before you even look at conversions
- Conversion rate by publisher shows who drives real sales vs. who just drives volume
- Compliance pass rate catches risky publishers before they become regulatory problems
- Built-in billing with configurable thresholds means accurate CPA without spreadsheets
- Ping delay lets you reward top publishers with priority access to agents
- Revenue per call is the single number that should drive your publisher strategy
Stop treating all publisher calls the same. With AgentTech's Publisher Queue architecture and built-in reporting, you have the data to hold every source accountable—and the controls to act on what the data tells you.
Start Tracking Publisher Performance Today
AgentTech Dialer includes Publisher Queues with per-source billing, reporting, and priority controls at no additional cost.
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