Measure the true value of calls with imported call conversions

Mobile click-to-call has made it easier than ever for consumers to connect with businesses over the phone. And growth in call volume shows no signs of slowing down. In fact, calls to U.S. businesses from smartphones are predicted to reach nearly 162 billion by 2019, a 73% increase from 2015.¹

Even though calls are a major source of conversions for many businesses, it can be challenging to measure a consumer journey that starts online from a search ad and ends with an offline conversation. Today, we’re announcing imported call conversions to help advertisers attribute revenue from phone calls back to their AdWords campaigns more accurately. This will roll out to all advertisers over the next few weeks.

Know which parts of your campaigns drive the most valuable calls 

Previously, advertisers have been able to measure call conversions using call length. For example, a travel advertiser may identify that calls resulting in new bookings typically last for at least one minute and set that as the minimum duration required to count a call as a conversion.

Imported call conversions now allows you to go a step beyond call length and measure the true conversion value of paid calls from mobile click-to-call ads or your website. You can also distinguish between various types of customer actions that you may value differently. For example, the travel advertiser might assign revenue amounts to different call types like new bookings, rate requests, service calls, and customer upsells to a larger trip package. With insights gathered from imported call conversions, they can then automatically optimize keyword bids to drive more valuable calls using Target ROAS automated bidding.

Companies like Nationwide and ShoppersChoice.com are already using imported call conversions to better measure and optimize for valuable calls:

“As Nationwide’s agency partners, driving qualified insurance prospects to its call center is a priority to effectively convert new customers. Until now, we haven't been able to maximize Nationwide’s presence in search because we couldn’t tie call revenue back to individual clicks. Imported call conversions takes AdWords measurement to the next level and we can now import actual policy sales driven by calls directly into AdWords. With this data, we can make better decisions about where to spend marketing budget, keyword bids & positioning, and campaign optimization. Even though it's still early, since including imported call conversions into campaign optimization, we’ve been able to increase spend on top-performing, call-driving terms by nearly 3x. This has even helped us identify new keyword expansion opportunities from search queries we wouldn’t have otherwise found without increasing our investment backed by imported calls data.” -- Jordan Jones, Associate Director of Performance Digital, UM

"Many customers have questions about our product selection or want to place an order directly with a sales rep, so we make it easy for them to call us from our ads and website. Imported call conversions brings our AdWords calls measurement a big step closer to fully closing the loop between our offline call center data and our online metrics. We have a better understanding of how calls from AdWords ads are driving revenue, and will be able to use these insights to make more informed decisions when it comes to budget allocation and campaign optimization." -- Jeff Loquist, Search Marketing Manager at ShoppersChoice.com

What you need to successfully import call conversions 

You only need to collect three pieces of information to import call conversion data into AdWords:

1. Caller phone number (Caller ID) 
2. Call start time 
3. Call length 

This data will remain secure and privacy-safe for your customers, and serve as the key to match conversions back to the AdWords calls that drove them. Conversions will be attributed down to the keyword-level to help you determine which parts of your campaigns drive the most valuable call conversions and where you should be investing your ad spend.

To learn more about imported call conversions, visit the Help Center and read our best practices for driving phone calls to your business and optimizing the caller experience.  

Posted by: Amit Agarwal, Senior Product Manager, Mobile Search Ads

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1. BIA/Kelsey, 2015