What is Google Ads (formerly AdWords) Call Tracking?
Google Ads call tracking is a type of conversion tracking in Ads that allows you to see how many prospective customers called your business after seeing or clicking one of your pay-per-click ads.
How Does Google Ads Call Tracking Work?
Ads call tracking can work two different ways. It can track calls made to a Google forwarding number displayed via a call extension alongside your ad, or via dynamic number insertion on your website where a new number is swapped in for every site visit so that individual keywords and the calls associated with them can be tracked.
It works by using a different number every time an ad is shown in order for Google to track which keywords/search queries drove the call.
Who Uses Ads Call Tracking?
Any advertiser looking to drive phone calls to their business, and better understand how their marketing is helping drive those calls, should be using call tracking. AdWords call tracking, along with other call tracking services like CallRail, can tell you which keywords are driving calls so you can better optimize your account to drive a higher volume of calls at a lower cost.
How to Set Up Google Ads Call Tracking:
Setting up the first kind of Ads call tracking is just adding call extensions to your ads and enabling call reporting. We go over how to set up call extensions in depth in this blog. The key component here is enabling call reporting here when setting up your extensions.
You’ll also have to set up a conversion action for a phone call under “Tools→ Conversions,” in Ads that you can then select when setting up your call extension.
The second kind of Ads call tracking is called “dynamic number insertion,” and Google’s implementation is described in this support article. In this implementation you’ll have to add a code to all the pages of your site, then edit said code to know which number to swap out on each page. Google’s implementation can be slightly intimidating, even for those with experience with JavaScript, so don’t hesitate to reach out to a developer on your team to help if you feel overwhelmed. They go in-depth about setting this kind of tracking up, but unless you have a web developer on hand, it can often be easier/faster to go with a call tracking provider like CallRail to handle this because the implementation is far simpler. CallRail’s solution just has you add one code to your website, and we handle the rest.
To learn more about how call tracking and analytics can improve your business, request your no-obligation demo of CallRail, or go ahead and start your 14-day free trial.
