If you didn’t know, Google AdWords is now allowing you to track phone calls from Google generated phone numbers attached to your Google AdWords ads. The big news is that we are really seeing measurable results with this new feature. For clients and account managers this now validates what Google AdWords has said all along; that Google AdWords ads are more than clicks, activity impacts off line activity and phone calls. Now we have the real proof!
It only costs a click plus $1 per phone call to get in the game. Although enabling this function does not track every single phone call that an AdWords ad may actually generate for your account, it does show hesitant clients the true power of AdWords beyond scripted form conversion response tracking.
We have enabled this feature in all of our own client accounts this past month and boy are we starting to see some results! For my own personal account I have always known that people will sit on my landing page and not fill out my form, which is tracked by an AdWords conversion script, but will pick up the phone and call me right there. Now with phone tracking I can actually determine which phone calls came from direct AdWords activity – a powerful thing!
The phone number is only shown at the top of your AdWords ad and will not appear on your landing page, the phone number may change. Besides that Google doesn’t really share what the phone number is with you. What Google does do is forward that call from a Google generated toll free number to your selected office phone and then record the call in your AdWords account.
Not every ad shown will show the phone number. So far we are seeing the phone number show on less than half of all ad impressions, but the results for many clients is striking. Find out more about call metrics by reading this blog post on the AdWords blog so you can take advantage of this new feature too.