About this site
Jake Holloway and the editorial approach behind Make A Referral Week.
About Jake Holloway
Affiliate marketer · Lead-gen operator
Jake Holloway
I run a portfolio of rank-and-rent local sites and a small affiliate network. Been in performance marketing since 2017. Verticals across home services, personal injury intake, and a couple of insurance experiments. I write about call tracking because I spend money on it every month and I've made every mistake worth making.
What I actually run
The portfolio shifts year to year, but the shape is roughly the same. About 40 rank-and-rent sites in home services (HVAC, plumbing, garage door, water damage). Around 10 personal injury intake sites that funnel calls to mass-tort intake firms. A handful of insurance experiments that mostly didn't work but taught me a lot about caller-area-code routing.
The call volume runs in the 8,000 to 14,000 minutes per month range across roughly 250 active tracking numbers. Most numbers are local DIDs because home services buyers want a local number on the landing page. Some are toll-free for the personal injury work where buyers prefer it.
Why I started writing about this
Three years ago I was paying $1,200/month to CallRail for a 200-number portfolio. The reporting was great. The CMO at one of my buyer agencies loved it. But the unit economics were eating my margin. I migrated to CallScaler in late 2024 and the bill dropped to about $250/month for the same call volume. Same workflow, same buyer relationships, $11k/year saved.
That kind of swing is rare in performance marketing. Most "growth hacks" save you a few percent on a line item. This was a structural shift in fixed costs. I started writing about it because most call-tracking reviews are written by SaaS marketers reviewing tools for SaaS marketers. The lead-gen operator perspective was missing.
What this site covers
Call tracking platforms specifically, evaluated through a lead-gen operator lens. The audience is affiliate marketers, rank-and-rent operators, lead-gen agency owners, and pay-per-call publishers. The coverage emphasis falls on per-number economics, routing flexibility, integration with paid media, and self-serve speed. Things I actually care about every month, not features that look good on a vendor deck.
How the site makes money
Reader-supported. The site earns a referral commission when readers sign up for tools through links on the site. Commissions never influence the rankings. The methodology is published on the methodology page and applied identically to every platform reviewed. Independent editorial entity, not owned by or affiliated with any reviewed product beyond the standard affiliate-link relationship. If a platform stops being the right pick on the math, it stops being the top pick on this site.