How do I track calls from my Google Ads with call reporting?

Call reporting is a setting of the whole Google Ads account. With it on, Google gives your call assets, location assets and call ads a Google forwarding number: a number of Google’s that rings your own, so Google Ads can record each call that comes through it, how long it lasted, and whether it was answered. You can count calls of a length you choose as conversions, and Smart Bidding can bid for them.

With it off, your ads show your own number and Google Ads tracks no calls. People can still call you from the ad, and a tap on its call button still costs a click, but nothing about the call reaches the account.

Call assets are what Google called call extensions until September 2022, when it renamed every ad extension an asset.

1. 01Go to Admin › Account settings and open Call reporting.
2. 02Select On, then Save. Google says it can take up to 24 hours to reach your live ads.
3. 03Go to Goals › Summary. New calls from your ads are counted under the conversion action Calls from ads, which Google creates and includes in your Conversions column.
4. 04To choose how long a call must last to count, or to count calls under an action of your own, select Create conversion action, then Conversions from phone calls, the Phone call lead category and Calls from ads.

If there’s no call reporting setting in your account settings, Google says your country or account type may not support Google forwarding numbers. Where both the caller and you are in the US or Canada, Google can also record calls and judge a lead by what was said rather than by how long the call lasted.

1. 01In Campaigns › Campaigns, or the ad groups, ads or search keywords table, select the columns icon and open Call details.
2. 02Check Phone calls, Phone Impr. and PTR, the share of the times your number showed that someone called, and select Apply.
3. 03For each call on its own, go to Campaigns › Insights and reports › Report editor and, under Ads and assets, open Call details: its start time, length, the caller’s area code, whether it was answered, and the campaign, ad group and keyword behind it.

Calls from ads is one of five kinds of call conversion. Three of them need Google forwarding numbers, and so call reporting on; the other two count a tap, not a call.

Google’s pages differ on what happens to Calls from ads when call reporting is off. One says Google stops tracking them as conversions, which Smart Bidding relies on; another that conversions are then classified from the click alone. Either way no call is heard: there’s no length, no answered or missed, and no call details.

Google says to turn call reporting off if you want your ads to show your own business number, or you track calls through a call tracking service of your own. There, it’s off on purpose: the calls are counted elsewhere.

• Forwarding numbers don’t work everywhere. Google lists call assets on the Display Network, and phone systems that play early media before answering, as places call tracking with them doesn’t work.
• Don’t publish the forwarding number. It’s Google’s and can change, so use it only in your ads and for website call tracking.
• If calls stop connecting, Google suggests turning call reporting off for a while to see whether the forwarding is the cause, then asking its support team if it isn’t.

Every day Goldbeater reads the account’s call reporting setting and every call asset. It raises one finding for the account, medium, when call reporting is off while an enabled campaign shows an enabled call asset: its own, or the account’s on an enabled Search or Performance Max campaign. The finding names each campaign and whose call asset it shows.

It drafts no change. The setting is the whole account’s, and a business that tracks calls through its own numbers keeps it off on purpose, so the advice is to turn it on unless that’s you.

Calls are one kind of conversion: the conversion tracking guide covers checking the rest, and the audit checklist has every tracking line with where to find it in Google Ads.

How do I turn on call reporting in Google Ads?

Go to Admin, then Account settings, open Call reporting, select On and save. Google says it can take up to 24 hours to reach your ads, and new calls are then counted under the Calls from ads conversion action.

What is a Google forwarding number?

A phone number of Google’s that rings your own. Call reporting gives one to your call assets, location assets and call ads so Google Ads can record each call. Google picks one with your area code where it can, or another local or toll-free number.

Does call reporting cost anything?

No more than a call does without it. A tap on your ad’s call button costs a click at your usual cost per click either way, and Google doesn’t charge when someone dials the forwarding number by hand.

Will people see a different phone number in my ads?

Google says that on mobile your business number shows in the ad, and the forwarding number appears in the dialer once someone taps to call. A caller who saves the forwarding number reaches you for 60 days after their last call through it.

Why are there more phone calls than call conversions?

A call counts as a conversion only when it lasts as long as you set, and every call counts as a phone call. Calls are also dated the day they happen and call conversions the day of the ad click.