Do you often ask your customers, “How did you hear about us?” With Smart campaigns, you can already see how often customers visit your website from clicks on your ads. But for some businesses, phone calls can be even more valuable than website visits. With verified calls, you can see how many phone calls you’ve received from your Smart campaign.
How verified calls works
Verified calls give you a better idea of your advertising impact, by showing you the number of calls that you receive from your Smart campaign, along with your clicks.
When your Smart campaign runs on Google, a unique Google forwarding number will be assigned to and displayed in your ads. This phone number will be displayed in your ad instead of your actual business phone number, and calls to this phone number will be forwarded to your actual business phone number. When you get a call from your ad, you’ll hear the following message: “Google Ads customer call”. That way, you’ll know which customers your ad is bringing in.
The Google forwarding phone number can appear in ads on either the desktop or mobile versions of Google search. Verified calls don’t work with ads that appear on Google Maps, and your business phone number won't change in Google Maps ads.
Note that verified calls don’t change how often your ad is served or the order that your ad appears on Google.
Where it's available
Call reporting is currently available in the US.
Pricing
Verified calls are now free for all Google Ads customers with Smart campaigns.
- Mobile ads: If customers click the phone number in your ad from mobile devices, you’ll be charged for a click regardless of whether you’ve enabled verified calls. There’s no extra charge for the call.
- Manually dialled calls: If customers dial the phone number in your desktops ads, the call will be reported for free. If you receive a click elsewhere on the ad, you'll still be charged for a click.
Benefits of verified calls
Verified calls can be effective if you want to know how often your customers are reaching you by phone after seeing your ad. By providing you with more details about how customers interact with your ad, you can get a more complete picture of the value that Smart campaigns can bring to your business.
Example
Joe has an car repair shop. He currently spends £100 a month on his Smart campaign and has received about 50 clicks each month. However, he’s not sure how many people are calling his business instead of clicking his ad. Joe sets up verified calls, and finds out that he’s received 50 calls from his Smart campaign in the last month.
Joe decides that with the amount of clicks and calls he gets from Smart campaigns, his campaigns are worthwhile for his business.