A Guide to Implementing Call Tracking

By Ash Stronge on July 28, 2016 in AdWords

As more advertisers are trying to use AdWords to drive calls to their website, it is necessary to have some way to measure how many calls are coming from the AdWords ads. This can be done through AdWords Call Tracking. These are small snippets of code that will measure a call as a conversion and record it as such in the AdWords account.

Once these conversions are set up and start accruing recorded calls, you will also be able to use the Call Details Report within the Dimensions Tab of AdWords interface. These include details about the call including:

Start Time
End Time
Call Duration (in seconds)
Area being called from
Status of Call (Received or Missed)

There are three types of calls that can be measured:

Google Forwarding Calls – a user will land on the website from AdWords and see a different number from other users (however it will have the same local area code and be charged the same to the caller). This number will be a Google Forwarding Number. When this number is called, it will still go through to the main business number, but will be able to be measured by Google.

Mobile Click to Call- a user will be on the website on a Mobile device and will be able to click on the number in order to directly phone the website number. This allows all of those clicks to be measured along with the details of the call that follows.

Call from Ads– a user can click directly on the extension in an ad, from a mobile device, in order to call the website’s phone number.

I will go through the details that are required in order to set up these conversions, below. Bear in mind that these codes are unique to your AdWords account, so you will need to find the specific code within the Conversion section of the AdWords interface. This can be done when setting up the conversion code, just below the conversion set up form.

Google Forwarding Call Tracking

Google Forwarding Call tracking would mean that visitors coming from AdWords would see a different phone number on your website to other visitors. When that number is called it will be tracked and counted as a conversion.

For the tracking to work properly, you’ll need to make sure that you include the code snippet below and we replace the phone number with the ‘onload’ JavaScript within the <body> tag anywhere that the phone number is mentioned on the website.

This function checks whether the website visit came from an ad click, and returns either a Google forwarding number or your business number as appropriate. You can find out more information at this link

———-

(function(a,e,c,f,g,b,d){var h={ak:”XXXXXXXXXXX”,cl:”vFkTCL3ny2UQs9HItgM”};a[c]=a[c]||function(){(a[c].q=a[c].q||[]).push(arguments)};a[f]||(a[f]=h.ak);b=e.createElement(g);b.async=1;b.src=”//www.gstatic.com/wcm/loader.js“;d=e.getElementsByTagName(g)[0];d.parentNode.insertBefore(b,d);a._googWcmGet=function(b,d,e){a[c](2,b,h,d,null,new Date,e)}})(window,document,”_googWcmImpl”,”_googWcmAk”,”script”);

</script>

———-

Additionally, if you add the following to the <body> tag:

onload="_googWcmGet('footer', '(028) 9012 3456')"

where the footer is the CSS class name of the <div> containing the phone number, followed by the  actual phone number.

so that it looks like this:

<body onload="_googWcmGet'(028) 9012 3456')">

More details on the process of setting this up can be found here https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/6095883?hl=en-GB&authuser=0#add_tag.

Mobile Click To Call Tracking

Also, if when on the website a user can click on the phone number on a mobile to make a call directly to the office, this can be tracked too.

For the tracking to work, you’ll need to make sure that you include both the code snippet below and add a link and appropriate ‘onClick’ attribute to the text containing the phone number. (The text below in red will need to be added around the phone number.)

e.g.

<body>

<a onclick="goog_report_conversion('tel:(028) 9012 3456')" href="#" > TEL: (028) 9012 3456 </a>

</body>

</html>

This tells AdWords to record a conversion only when a customer clicks on a tagged phone number on your mobile site. Here are instructions for this – https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/6095878?hl=en-GB

The additional code snippet to be added onto the page is:

————

<!– Google Code for Mobile Click to Call Conversion Page

In your html page, add the snippet and call

goog_report_conversion when someone clicks on the

phone number link or button. –>

/* <![CDATA[ */

goog_snippet_vars = function() {

var w = window;

w.google_conversion_id = XXXXXXXXX;

w.google_conversion_label = “XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX”;

w.google_remarketing_only = false;

}

// DO NOT CHANGE THE CODE BELOW.

goog_report_conversion = function(url) {

goog_snippet_vars();

window.google_conversion_format = “3”;

var opt = new Object();

opt.onload_callback = function() {

if (typeof(url) != ‘undefined’) {

window.location = url;

}

var conv_handler = window[‘google_trackConversion’];

if (typeof(conv_handler) == ‘function’) {

conv_handler(opt);

}

/* ]]> */

</script>

src=”//www.googleadservices.com/pagead/conversion_async.js“>

</script>

——–

Click to Call Extensions

This can be set up within the AdWords Account and will be ready to start tracking conversions that come directly from the phone number in the ad (via the Call Extension).

If you have any questions about Call tracking or what else can be tracked as conversions, please do not hesitate to contact us at 02890683790 or at this email, ash@searchscientist.co.uk.

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A Guide to Implementing Call Tracking

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