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Did you know that phone calls are responsible for more than 40% of all search-related conversions?
Not only that, the majority of eCommerce businesses nowadays consider phone calls to be one of their best sources of leads.
When customers land on your website or find your company via Google search, they might have some questions regarding your products or services. And one of the fastest ways for them to connect to your business is by calling it directly.
By establishing a direct line of contact with your customers through phone calls, you also increase the accessibility of your business.
Considering the impact that phone calls have on sales conversions, you will want to gather as much data as you can about your call extensions and call-only ad campaigns. And this is where Google AdWords Call Reports come in.
This guide will explain how call conversion tracking works, how you can set it up, and how to interpret and take advantage of all the data you can obtain through such business reports.
The call reporting feature on Google Ads allows users to measure the success of call extensions, location extensions, and call ads displayed on their website.
This type of reporting also tracks details such as duration, call start/end time, caller area code, caller phone number, and whether the call was connected.
One of the best ways to use call reporting is to set a specific phone call duration that you will automatically count in as a conversion. After that, you can use automated bidding strategies to increase the odds of creating actual conversions.
The main advantage that call reporting has brought to advertisers is the ability to track all call reporting aspects in only one account.
Call reporting works by using forwarding numbers from Google to measure the call extensions and call ads. Once you enable call reporting, a Google forwarding phone number will be added to the advertisement. This will allow you to gather all the significant data of your calls and count them as conversions.
Statistics show that most search-related conversions happen over the phone. This is why most business owners consider phone calls to be their best source of leads.
Considering their importance, advertisers have constantly been on the lookout for a way to track those calls back to the ads that persuaded them. Hence, the call tracking report.
Call tracking reports help you see the bigger picture behind call conversions. In most cases, you will be using both online and offline channels for conversions. But, by knowing which channel is generating the most conversions, you will be able to optimize your account performance much better.
Once you know which ads are triggering phone calls, you can create better decisions regarding your ad budget and organize an efficient sales strategy.
Google AdWords call tracking reports provide you with the exact keywords responsible for triggering phone calls. By using the call extensions Google AdWords offers, you can track both activities on your website and inbound phone calls that come from ads on other channels.
Call tracking reports help you measure how well your campaigns are performing. Using the campaign tab you can obtain all the important call metric data that you will later need for optimization.
Here is the breakdown of what happens when you enable call tracking reports on your ads:
Related: Google Analytics User-ID Reports: Everything You Need to Know
The call tracking report will provide you access to the data within the campaign and ad group level. The metrics you can analyze are:
Of course, this is only scratching the surface of call tracking reports. To help you gain a better understanding of this amazing feature, we will show you how call tracking works through different extensions and phone number placements.
When it comes to the positioning of the phone numbers on online ads, there are a few different places where they can be displayed.
To maximize the chances of receiving calls, advertisers should display a phone number at each marketing stage. The search result, website landing page, and the display ads that users see after leaving the website should all contain the phone number as they are all potential conversion channels.
Also, how users see your phone number next to the ad will depend on whether they are using a desktop device or a mobile device.
If someone uses a desktop device to take a look at your call extension, they will see a phone number appear right next to your ad.
If you enable the “Use a Google Phone Number” option, the phone number the callers will see won’t be yours – it’s a unique number used for call tracking purposes. We will talk about this in detail in the next section.
Users that locate your online ad through a mobile device will see the call extension differently. Instead of a phone number being displayed next to the ad, there will be a “Call” button that they can click to directly contact your business.
After clicking on “Call”, the phone number will appear in the native call function of their phone and it immediately connects them to your business.
In many cases, visitors won’t automatically contact your business after just seeing the ad. They might want to check out what your website offers and see what your business is all about. After learning about your services/products, they can contact your business if they have certain questions.
In cases like this, it is best to set your phone number on the landing page of the website so potential customers can use it after navigating through all the different sections.
Setting call report tracking in your Google Ads is a pretty straightforward process and all it takes are a few simple steps.
Follow these steps to set up call report tracking in no time:
Once you have enabled call report tracking, we can move on to some specifics such as using phone number extensions and dynamic number swapping. Let’s check it out.
There are a few ways you can make your ads more engaging and interesting on Google, but ad extensions are by far the best method.
One of the most significant ad extensions is the call extension.
Call extensions are the add-ons that enable potential customers to view your phone number next to the ad on the Google search result. These extensions can be integrated into the ads you already have in your AdWords account.
One of the main advantages of call extensions is that the users can dial the number free of charge.
Also, it is a good idea to set up call extensions with different numbers for different ad groups. This is because your users will generally come from various cities, which means they won’t have the same area codes.
Let’s say that your company is based in Los Angeles. Users that find your business through “Los Angeles” keywords will see a phone number with a 213 prefix. But, if a user from a different ad group finds your website through a “Chicago” keyword, they will see a 312 prefix.
To implement call extensions, follow these few steps:
If you choose the “Google Number” option, you will be able to use call reporting features such as start/end time, status, duration, campaign, ad group, call type, and caller area code. The Google Number is essentially a randomly-generated number that forwards callers to your phone line.
Also, you can set phone calls that last a certain duration to be counted as conversions. This can’t be done by using your own phone number.
Using the Google phone number is highly recommendable since this is the best way to obtain the important call tracking data you need to optimize your ads.
On the other hand, using your own phone number can be useful in case your users choose to write down the phone number they see next to the ad.
Differences aside, the best call extension feature is scheduling. For example, if none of your employees can answer the phone at a certain time, you can set the phone number to disappear temporarily.
Keep in mind, simply implementing call extensions will allow you to track phone calls in your reporting, but the calls won’t be tracked as conversions.
If you want to track them as conversions, these are the few additional steps you have to make:
The dynamic number swapping method is used in situations when users go past the call extension phone number and enter your website. Normally, if they decided to call you while they are at your website, they will look for a phone number somewhere on the landing page or in the “Contact Us” section.
Dynamic number swapping catches users that have entered your website and change the phone number they see with a new phone number that will be used for tracking.
When they use this new tracking number to contact you, Google AdWords will count the call as a conversion and forward it to your real number.
Implementing dynamic number swapping isn’t difficult, it just requires you to take a few additional steps.
Here is how you can do it:
Once you are finished with setting up your call tracking reports, you can start implementing certain practices to enhance the CRO of your call-only ads.
These are some of the leading ad campaign optimization practices that you can use in your business.
Keywords are the main drivers of traffic to your website. Make sure you target your audience by using the proper keywords. For example, you should find those that have “near me” intent if you are looking to attract users in your local area.
Depending on which type of business you run, prime times can vary. For instance, the best time to schedule ads for restaurants would be somewhere around lunchtime.
Once you know the time users are most likely to call your business, you can optimize your ad campaigns accordingly.
Call-only ads offer a limited amount of characters (around 70) for descriptions. This means that your description lines should be short but effective. Try to come up with something charming and short. Also, it is best if you come up with a few short PPC copies so you can test which one engages the most users.
If a user wants to buy some piece of tech equipment, they will likely search for a place nearest to them. Arrange your ads to appear within the local area of your clients since this is directly linked with increased call activity.
To monitor and improve the performance of your Google Ads campaigns, you can spend hours running a variety of reports and compiling selected metrics manually into one dashboard. Or, you can pull all your data automatically into one dashboard with Databox.
You can instantly review all of your campaigns and drill down on important metrics, such as:
Now you can benefit from the experience of our Google Ads experts, who have put together a plug-and-play Databox template showing all the key insights you need to optimize your Google Ads campaigns for conversion and ROI. It’s simple to implement and start using as a standalone dashboard or in PPC reports, and best of all, it’s free!
You can easily set it up in just a few clicks – no coding required.
To set up the dashboard, follow these 3 simple steps:
Step 1: Get the template
Step 2: Connect your Google Ads account with Databox.
Step 3: Watch your dashboard populate in seconds.
Call tracking dashboards are one of the best ways to track all the different call metrics and KPIs you receive with Google Ads. They provide you with a comprehensive overview of how well your sales team responds to incoming and outbound calls which makes call tracking easier.
The call tracking data you gather will be displayed in one place and you can access it at any given time. This can make the analysis process easier and you will have more time to work on optimizing sales and call-only ad campaigns to improve conversion rates.
Creating a dashboard from scratch can take up a lot of your valuable time, which is why we prepared a few call tracking dashboard templates that you can use and download for free.
By using the CallRail Source & Keyword Performance Dashboard, you will be able to measure the success of call metrics by comparing them in three ways – first time callers, total calls, and the average call duration.
The two main advantages of this dashboard are:
Analyzing the average call duration will provide you with insight into the quality of your leads.
Some of the key metrics this dashboard covers are first-time calls by source, total calls by source, average duration by source, average duration by keyword, and the comparison of total calls vs. answered calls.
If you want a comprehensive report that contains call origin data, received calls for a certain period, and the overall responsiveness of your sales team to incoming calls, you should consider the CallRail Overview Dashboard.
Here are some questions that this dashboard can provide answers to:
The key metrics you can analyze through this report are missed calls, missed calls by source, average duration by source, first-time callers by source, and total calls.
Having a clear summary of how your ad campaigns are performing is necessary for future conversion optimization. To check the responsiveness of your sales team to incoming calls and to find out where the calls are coming from, you should use the CallRail Campaigns Overview Dashboard.
By using this free dashboard, you will have a clearer picture of whether you are hitting your monthly call volume goals.
Some of the key metrics included are total calls by campaigns, answered calls by campaigns, all calls by source, total missed calls, and plenty more.
Call reporting is all about gathering the most important data about your callers and measuring the success of your call-only ad campaigns. Since you will use this information to optimize your campaigns and increase business sales, you will want to make the analysis process easier and less time-consuming.
Databox can help you do just that.
By using our customizable dashboards, you will be able to track every lead and conversion type from your campaigns and visualize all of that data with only one click. Aside from attributing leads, you can also attribute revenue and trace both of them back to your PPC keywords. This will provide you with insight into which keywords are driving the most traffic, leads, and revenue.
Lastly, you will also be able to track leads through the full customer journey. To better understand your customer, you have to understand their behavior at each step of the buying process.
Sign up for free today and make the most out of your Google Ads call tracking reports now.
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Filip Stojanovic is a content writer who studies Business and Political Sciences. Also, I am a huge tennis enthusiast. Although my dream is to win a Grand Slam, working as a content writer is also interesting.
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