![\"Call](\"https:\/\/searchengineland.com\/wp-content\/seloads\/2013\/09\/call-extension-desktop-300x187.png\")
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Call Extensions on desktop allow advertisers to show a trackable phone number with their ads.<\/p>\n
On a mobile device, call extensions are shown as “Call” buttons (pictured below). They look different, but they’re coming from the same settings in AdWords.<\/p>\n
![\"Call](\"https:\/\/searchengineland.com\/wp-content\/seloads\/2013\/09\/call-extension-mobile-300x300.png\")
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Call Extensions on mobile devices hide the phone number but allow users to initiate a call to the advertiser.<\/p>\n
Call extensions can be set at the ad group level — so if you want, you can show a different number for each ad group. You should consider showing numbers with different area codes if you have different ad groups for different cities. For example, a company that services the entire San Francisco Bay Area could show a phone number with the 415 prefix for ad groups with “San Francisco” keywords and a 650 prefix for ad groups that have keywords for “Palo Alto,” thereby reinforcing the local nature of their business.<\/p>\n
One of the best things about showing a phone number through a call extension on a desktop or tablet is that there’s no charge when the user calls the number, even when using Google Voice to track the calls. Here are the pros and cons of using a Google Voice tracking number versus your own number in call extensions.<\/p>\n
Benefits of Using Your Own Number<\/strong><\/p>\n Benefits of Using a Free Google Voice Tracking Number<\/strong><\/p>\n If the user doesn’t call the number shown with your ad and decides to visit your site first, you can still track calls. However, the implementation is now a bit different. A quick and dirty solution is to show a special number that you don’t use anywhere else on all the landing pages for AdWords ads so when that number rings, you’ll know it was someone who clicked on your Google ad.<\/p>\n Use a special phone number on your landing page that is only shown to users who clicked your AdWords ads for simple phone tracking.<\/p>\n A more sophisticated approach that’s still easy to set up is to use a call tracking system that dynamically shows different phone numbers to users who click your ads. Services like ifByPhone, Mongoose Metrics, LogMyCalls and a slew of others all provide this service from about $150 per month, depending on how many calls you get.<\/p>\n The basic principle of how they operate is very similar and goes something like this: based on your estimated number of monthly visitors, they calculate how many unique phone numbers are needed to be able to show a different number for each click.<\/p>\n Having one number per click would be exorbitantly expensive, so they have technology that rotates the numbers in such a way that allows tracking each call back to a single ad click. So when a user clicks an ad, they see a unique number. If that number gets a call, it’s associated with that click. If no call happens and a certain amount of time passes, the number goes back into the pool and can be shown to another user who clicked your ad.<\/p>\n Use dynamic phone number insertion on the landing page so you can track which keywords drive the most calls.<\/p>\n The data they collect can be sent to Google Analytics<\/a>, where you can count it as a goal completion, and from there, you can feed it back into AdWords as a conversion. The beauty of this solution is that call conversion data is put into AdWords so you can use it to set the right bids and do optimizations to help meet your goals.<\/p>\n Most of these tracking providers can even record the calls, so if you’re ever unsure about the quality of the leads or how good your sales people are at selling, you can just listen to the calls to figure it out.<\/p>\n To show tracking numbers in display ads, you have to add the number into the ad manually. Your best bet here is to set aside a few unique numbers and use one in each campaign. You won’t have granular details, but at least you’ll have some sense of whether remarketing and display ads are driving calls. Google provides some limited options for call extensions in display ads, but they’ll only work on mobile and they can’t be tracked as conversions.<\/p>\n Now that you’re showing tracking numbers at all touchpoints related to AdWords, it’s time to look at reports and see how your campaigns are performing. Thanks to Google’s enhanced call extensions that can use Google Voice to connect calls, it’s now possible to see call data inside AdWords reports.<\/p>\n Before Google Voice integration, they had no way of telling what happened after a user clicked a phone number with their mobile device. So while they could report a click on a phone number, they had no idea whether that call connected and if so, how long it lasted. If a large portion of those calls went unanswered because there wasn’t anyone staffing your phones or if calls were usually quick and didn’t lead to sales, they simply couldn’t tell.<\/p>\n Consolidating The Call Reports<\/strong><\/p>\n If you have call tracking at all touchpoints, you’ll have at least two different systems that are reporting: one for calls before a click, and one for calls after a click. While all the data can be consolidated in AdWords, making sense of the reports can be a bit of a challenge. So here’s a sample AdWords campaign report where I’ve enabled the segment “Click type.”<\/p>\n If you read this particular example incorrectly, you might easily be undervaluing your results by 20% or by as much as 50%. Take a look at the numbered legend below the screenshot to see where it’s easy to lose count of total conversions.<\/p>\n\n
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2. Tracking Phone Calls From Your Website<\/h2>\n
![\"Unique](\"https:\/\/searchengineland.com\/wp-content\/seloads\/2013\/09\/special-adwords-number-600x436.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"Dynamic](\"https:\/\/searchengineland.com\/wp-content\/seloads\/2013\/09\/dynamic-call-tracking-600x415.png\"){kind=tracking}
<\/p>\n3. Tracking Numbers In Display Ads<\/h2>\n
Tracking Phone Calls In Reports<\/h2>\n
![\"Click-type](\"https:\/\/searchengineland.com\/wp-content\/seloads\/2013\/09\/call-conversions-600x193.png\")