The Best Way to Track Calls from Google Ads

Your latest Google Ads campaign just drove 500 phone calls.

Great news, right?

Maybe not. Here's the problem: While you know these calls happened, you have no idea which ones actually turned into revenue. And you're not alone—a staggering 62% of marketers fail to attribute revenue to inbound calls.

Even worse? Only 39% of companies carry out attribution on "all or most" of their marketing activities. That means the majority of businesses are making advertising decisions based on incomplete data.

This gap in call tracking and attribution creates two major problems:

1. You can't prove the ROI of your Google Ads spend
2. You can't optimize your campaigns to drive more valuable calls

The good news? Setting up proper Google Ads call tracking solves both issues. But there's a catch—there's a big difference between basic Google Ads call tracking and the kind that actually helps you grow revenue.

This guide breaks down:

• The two main methods for tracking calls in Google Ads
• How to set up call tracking (even if you're not technical)
• Ways to measure call quality and lead value

Plus, you'll see a real example of how one of our customers used advanced call tracking to obtain a 15x marketing ROI.

Let's start with the basics—what exactly is Google Ads call tracking and how does it work?

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What Is Google Ads Call Tracking?

Marketers use Google Ads call tracking to find out how many people have called their business after seeing an ad. With Google’s native call tracking tools, you can learn:

• Which ads are driving the most calls
• How long the average call lasts
• When users call the most

However, Google’s call tracking data is limited: it can tell you how many people called and when, but it can’t give you information about each individual caller. It can’t tell you which conversions came from qualified prospects or which calls ultimately became customers.

For example, let’s say you have one ad that produces 50 calls and another ad that produces 10 calls. If you’re using Google’s native tools, you’re going to prioritize the first ad, since it’s generating more calls.

But if 90% of the first ad’s calls are spam, the second ad is actually more valuable—and unless you’re using an in-depth call tracking platform like WhatConverts, you’ll have no idea why you’re increasing your budget for your more “successful” ad, only to get more junk leads.

What is Advanced Call Tracking?

Advanced call tracking goes beyond lead count to track the information you need to optimize your ads for lead value instead of lead volume.

WhatConverts equips you with complete call tracking data, allowing you to:

• See which pages and ads leads have interacted with in the past (customer journey)
• Hear and read what individual leads said on calls (call recording and transcription)
• Determine which calls came from leads that are worth pursuing (lead qualification)
• Learn which calls result in a sale — and how much each sale is worth (lead valuation)

In other words, advanced call tracking is the only way to get all of the data you need to determine true ROI.

The Two Main Methods for Google Ads Call Tracking

There are two ways to track calls from Google Ads: using Google’s native call tracking tools, or using a third-party call-tracking platform that integrates with Google Ads.

Method 1: Tracking Calls Using Google’s Native Tools

Google offers built-in call tracking through Google forwarding numbers. This provides basic data like total call count, call duration, time of calls, and general location data.

Google provides four methods to track calls:

• Calls directly from ads: Phone numbers appear directly in the ad itself, and calls are tracked and passed to your business via a Google forwarding number.
  Google Ads Setup Guide: Track calls from ads
• Website call tracking: Your website phone number is replaced with a Google forwarding number that tracks calls made from your site.
  Google Ads Setup Guide: Track calls to a phone number on a website
• Mobile click-to-call: Google counts each call placed by users that click on your phone number directly from your mobile site. Tracking is limited, since this method doesn’t use a Google forwarding number or a third-party tracking platform.
  Google Ads Setup Guide: Track phone number clicks on a mobile website
• Manual or third-party call import: Calls are tracked using a third-party platform like WhatConverts, and Google allows users to import data-rich call leads to Google Ads as conversions.
  Google Ads Setup Guide: Import phone call conversions

Method 2: WhatConverts (Recommended)

To get more comprehensive data on your Google Ads calls, you can integrate with a third-party platform like WhatConverts to capture more thorough information.

Platforms like WhatConverts provide comprehensive call tracking that captures deeper insights, like:

• Complete marketing attribution
• Individual lead profiles
• Call recordings and transcripts
• Revenue tracking
• Customer journey mapping
• Lead scoring and qualification

WhatConverts setup is quick and simple. You can start tracking calls in as little as 20 minutes (even if you're not very technical).

All it takes is four easy steps:

1. Create an account
2. Install a tracking code (made easy with a helpful plugin)
3. Select your tracking phone numbers
4. Connect to your Google Ads using our native integration

That’s it.

To see a more in-depth breakdown of setting up call tracking in WhatConverts, check out the guide below.

Read More: WhatConverts Step-By-Step Setup Guide

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Understanding Call Quality & Lead Value

Not all phone calls are created equal.

While Google can tell you how many calls your ads generated, it can't help you distinguish between a hot lead and a wrong number. That distinction matters when it comes to optimizing ad spend.

Let's look at an example:

Campaign A:

• Generates 100 calls
• Costs $10 per call

Campaign B:

• Generates 50 calls
• Costs $20 per call

If you look at the data that Google Ads provides, Campaign A looks like the clear winner.

Here’s what Google can’t see: 90% of Campaign A’s calls are spam.

Campaign B is driving fewer leads, but those leads are qualified prospects ready to make a purchase. What’s more, since we can tie specific lead profiles to their initial Google Ads calls, we can see that the leads from Campaign B are spending $100 on average — a 5x return on ad spend.

Suddenly, Campaign A doesn’t look so impressive. But a marketer that’s working with Google Ads data can’t see that. In fact, they’re now cutting ad spend on Campaign B and reallocating it to Campaign A, optimizing for lead quantity instead of quality and costing their company thousands of dollars in sales.

This is why in-depth call tracking makes a real difference. Beyond basic metrics like call duration and timing, WhatConverts captures rich data about each caller and their journey. In-depth tracking can reveal:

• Actual sales conversations through call recordings
• Transcripts that identify specific buying signals
• Terms mentioned during calls that indicate intent
• Complete customer journey before the call
• Post-call outcomes, through integration with your CRM

The system can even automatically evaluate calls based on criteria you set. For instance, you might mark a call as "qualified" when it:

• Lasts longer than two minutes
• Mentions specific services or products
• Comes from your target geographic area
• Shows clear buying intent signals

So not only can you optimize for real lead value, but you can do so without spending hours on manual review.

4 More Reasons to Use WhatConverts for Call Tracking in Google Ads

Setup alone is easier using the WhatConverts method, but there are many more reasons why WhatConverts is the obvious choice for Google Ads call tracking and lead attribution.

1. Clearer Picture of True Lead Quality

WhatConverts gives you access to a wealth of lead quality data that you can't get directly from Google. Data like:

• Complete marketing attribution (which keywords, ads, campaigns generated calls)
• Call recordings and transcriptions
• User contact information
• Customer journey (which of your pages leads have visited before)
• Other conversion actions leads have taken (filled out forms, sent emails, chats with sales/support, etc.)

So how exactly does this comprehensive data helps you optimize your ads budget to prioritize qualified and valuable leads?

Let's say you’re a marketing agency, and you're generating leads for a dental clinic. When you're evaluating your leads, advanced call tracking data can help you quickly identify:

• Bad leads: Filter out calls that only last a few seconds, are off-topic, or come from existing customers
• Valid prospects: Qualify calls from ads for high-value procedures like "veneers"
• High buying intent: Prioritize calls whose transcripts include urgency-signaling keywords like "appointment" or "emergency"

You can quickly sort through your leads, mark valid prospects as qualified, and then send them over to your client's sales team—all from a single dashboard.

Simple.

In fact, you can even do all of this automatically using WhatConverts's Lead Intelligence feature. Just set up your filters and criteria and the platform will sort your leads for you, accomplishing hours of work in just seconds.

For more on Lead Intelligence, check out the guide below.

Read More: Lead Intelligence: The Smarter Way to Score, Qualify, & Value Your Leads

2. Tie Revenue Back to Your Marketing w/ Closed-Loop Attribution

One of the best things about WhatConverts is it lets you tie revenue back to the exact marketing that generated it.

Knowing you got 60 calls from Google Ads is great, but what's better is knowing exactly how much money you made from those 60 calls—and which campaigns and landing pages were responsible for bringing in the big spenders.

Once you know what services individual callers are interested in, you can add corresponding sales values to each of those lead profiles. Now, you no longer have a pile of generic leads—you have a database of future patients who need $200 cleanings, $1500 root canals, and $2000 veneers.

With those sales values added, you can then generate reports that tell you which campaigns, ads, keywords, and landing pages drove not just the most leads, but the most qualified leads, the most overall value, and even the highest value per lead.

This is just one example; you can learn more about our many reports here.

3. Smarter Integration for Strategic Optimization (Maximize ROAS)

Google Ads trains its bidding algorithm to target the keywords that generate the most conversions. But since they're only working with lead count and not lead quality or value, that algorithm can't distinguish between keywords that are generating valuable leads versus those that are generating spam.

Once you're qualifying and valuing your leads in WhatConverts, you're working with a much more valuable dataset than the one Google is using—and WhatConverts allows you to send that valuable dataset back to Google, so that it can start targeting keywords that bring in real leads that result in real sales.

By configuring your conversion triggers, you can set up filters that determine which conversion data is sent back to Google Ads. For example, you might tell WhatConverts to send conversions for leads where:

• The call lasted over a certain duration (e.g., more than 60 seconds)
• The lead was marked as “qualified” post-call
• A sales value was been added to the lead

By only sending these "good" conversions, you can effectively train the Google Ads algorithm to only target high-quality, high-value leads.

To learn more about how that works, check out the guide below:

Read More: How to Optimize Google Ads Automated Bidding for Better Results

4. Access to Bottom-Line Data (Like CPL) for Better Decision Making

Every marketer knows that, while generating valuable leads is great, it doesn't mean anything if it cost of generating those leads is more than the leads themselves are worth. And while cost per click can be a useful metric for calculating ROI, WhatConverts gives you access to an even more valuable measurement: cost per lead (CPL).

Since WhatConverts tracks the actual sales values, it gives you the ability to see how much it cost you to acquire actual leads to calculate the true marketing ROI on your advertising efforts. It filters out spam, so that your data isn't muddled by junk leads. With cost per lead data, you can allocate your budget toward the campaigns that bring in the most value for the lowest cost.

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Try Out WhatConverts for Google Ads Call Tracking Today

Native solutions for Google Ads conversion tracking for calls are great for collecting baseline call data.

But with WhatConverts, you collect richer lead data that provides more valuable insights. And getting your WhatConverts account set up for Google Ads call tracking takes mere minutes.

WhatConverts lets you:

• Understand true lead quality
• Tie revenue earned back to your exact marketing
• Maximize ROAS with a powerful Google Ads integration
• Access important data like CPL for better decision making

So if you’re an agency looking for a way (or a better way) to track calls from Google Ads, be sure to try WhatConverts today.

Try the powerful call tracking and lead tracking of WhatConverts by starting your free 14-day trial today!