Phone Tracking - How Can You Track Your Customers' Calls?

The synergies that arise from online and offline have been occupying the online marketing community for quite some time. There are now more and more ways to connect the different disciplines, such as through phone tracking. Nowadays, it is possible to accurately attribute phone calls generated, for example, through AdWords ads. This gives the ads added value.

Beforehand, campaign goals should be clearly defined. What actions would you like users to take? Should they buy a product, sign up for your newsletter, or download your white paper? These are the conversions that are most often tracked. However, even users who contact you by phone may be relevant to your business. With AdWords Conversion Tracking, you have the option to track the phone calls that come through your text ads or your site.

This article will introduce you to the different phone call tracking options.

What call conversions are there?

Whether you have a brick-and-mortar store, an online shop, or an informative website; as soon as you advertise your business through AdWords, the success of each click on your ads should be measured. Did the user purchase a product after clicking on your ad, stay on the page for more than a minute, or call you for advice? Even if you don't accept bookings over the phone, customers who contact you by phone are important. Because this contact can also lead to a conversion later.

Contacting via number in your text ad

Through an AdWords text ad, you provide the user with relevant information about your business. You use the two titles and the description to best describe your products and/or services and invite the user to interact with your page using a call-to-action.

You have the option to add additional information to the text ad via text extensions. One of these ad extensions is the call extension.

Fig. 1: Text ad with call extension

You can set up conversion tracking so that a conversion is counted in AdWords when a user calls this number. It's possible to set filters to exclude, for example, short or irrelevant calls.

To successfully set up call tracking via the call extension, the following requirements must be met:

• Use of a Google forwarding number

• Activation of the option "Count calls as call conversions"

This tracking is also possible when you use a "Call-only ad":

Fig. 2: Call-only ad

Please note that this feature is not supported in all countries.

Contacting via number on your website

In this case, the user clicked on your ad and landed on your target page. On this page, you have displayed your phone number so that users can contact you by phone if they have any questions.

Fig. 3: Phone number on website

These calls can also be tracked and counted as conversions in AdWords.

To successfully set up call tracking via your website, the following requirements must be met:

• Use of a call extension

• Use of a Google forwarding number

• Integration of a conversion tracking code and a JavaScript snippet to replace your phone number with a Google forwarding number

Contacting via number on your mobile website

In this case, you can only track clicks on your phone number, not the calls themselves.

Requirements:

• Use of a Google forwarding number

• Integration of a conversion tracking code on your page

• Integration of a JavaScript snippet with an onclick event handler

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Data import from CRM systems into AdWords

With this method, you have the ability to track only the calls that lead to a purchase as conversions. Here, the values of the sales can also be included in the tracking.

How does it work?

- Creation of a conversion action for customer calls that occur through your ads or your page (after the user has clicked on your ad)

- Capture of call details (phone number, time, duration of the calls, purchase, etc.) in your CRM

- Uploading the file into AdWords

- AdWords plays the call information into the CRM

- Evaluation of the performance of your campaigns, ad groups, and keywords

The following requirement must be met for importing call conversions:

• Use of a Google forwarding number.

With call conversion tracking, you can see which keywords lead to calls and optimize your campaigns accordingly.

What can we do for you?

Do you need help implementing call conversion tracking? Do you have questions about AdWords? Our experts are happy to help, contact us.