Enhance Your Google Ads with Ad Extensions and Track Calls with Forwarding Numbers

To make the Google text ads even more eye-catching, Google AdWords to display the ad extensions. With this you can enlarge the ads and enrich them with additional information. When using sitelink extensions, several areas or services can be advertised with just one ad. The output of address and telephone number is also possible. This additional information sets the advertisements apart from those of the competition, has a “more attractive” effect and therefore encourages people to click.

A special form of ad extension is the forwarding number. It is a call extension option and also enables data to be recorded in the AdWords account for telephone calls.

Background information on the forwarding number

So that the performance of the ads is correct can be evaluated, as much performance data as possible must be recorded. The disadvantage of using the call extension is that calls themselves do not provide any information for analysis. A simple call is made separately from the AdWords system and thus eludes data collection. Only the click on the call extension can be recorded and evaluated. How to correctly evaluate sitelinks we will explain in the next article.

However, Google offers an elegant way out of this, namely the use of forwarding numbers. If you select this option while setting up the call extension, it is possible to collect data from calls. The forwarding phone number is generated by Google and shown in the text displays instead of your own phone number. However, calls still arrive at your own number. You can measure all calls made via the forwarding number as conversion. In addition, there is a lot more data available for evaluating the performance. Under Dimensions you can find out many interesting details about the calls, e.g. B. Time, length of the call and the area code of the caller.

Automatic activation of forwarding

On March 9, 2016, Google activated many AdWords accounts with the call extension set automatically the forwarding number. This was recognizable from the additional evaluation options that appeared in the account. So it could happen that columns suddenly appeared at campaign level in which the calls received were output. Of course, Google had previously informed customers about this change by e-mail, but for many AdWords customers this change is likely to have been made quite surprisingly.

The disadvantage of the forwarding number and one reason not to choose a facility is that the numbers can change after a while. It is possible that customers write down the forwarding phone number from the advert that has been placed or save it on the phone, but after a while it no longer works or is used by another AdWords account. AdWords customers cannot predict when the number will change. Despite this problem, however, the benefits of establishing call extensions with forwarding numbers outweigh the benefits. The information obtained gives important information about the performance of campaigns and makes other important data available for evaluation, which are very difficult to record manually. For example, you can specify that only calls that last longer than 5 minutes are counted as conversions. Calls that are shorter are tracked but not recorded as conversion.

How can you find out the phone number?

The most important question comes at the end. Where can I see my own forwarding number? After setting up the call extension with forwarding number, you would of course want to see this automatically generated number yourself. You can do this by entering appropriate keywords in the Google search and then, with a bit of luck, your phone number will appear in the ad. Of course, this also works in the ad preview and diagnosis tool. This method is recommended so as not to influence the data collection by AdWords. A ‘more elegant’ solution for a view is unfortunately not yet offered.