How to Track Phone Calls Through Google AdWords

For many businesses the number one goal is to increase revenue through conversions on their site. Conversions can be a number of different things such as filling out a form, making a purchase, signing up for an email, or calling the business. For many of these conversions it’s easy to track through both Google Analytics and Google AdWords. However, when a user calls a business how do we determine where they found the phone number? We will walk you through how to setup phone tracking within Google AdWords.

Setting up AdWords Call Tracking

To begin we will be logged into our AdWords dashboard and make sure the proper campaign is selected.

1) Select tools and then select conversions from the dropdown.

2) Click the +Conversion button, followed by the Phone Calls option. Now there’s three different phone selections, as follows.

• Calls from ads using call extensions or call-only ads – This option shows a phone number within an AdWords ad, through a call extension. To set this up a Google forwarding number needs to be created which can be done within the Call-Only Campaigns.
• Calls to a phone number on your website – This tracks a call that comes through your website from an ad. You’ll need to add conversion tracking to your site and analytics.
• Clicks to your phone number or call button – Google will show a ‘Call” option within an ad that allows for mobile users to simply click to call.  

3) Next we will create a conversion, here we specify what we want to be considered a conversion.

• Name your conversion.
• Set a monetary value for the conversion.
• Set a call length to be considered a conversion.
• Count conversions to the site.
• Conversion window sets how long following a click will be considered a conversion.
• Categorize your conversion.
• Check box for include in conversions.

Monitor your phone call conversions to determine with ads are performing better and what ads appeal to your audience. You may find users are using mobile devices more often, which would tell you to focus your ads towards mobile users.