Google AdWords Call Tracking

Question: What do you get when you combine the reach and effectiveness of Google AdWords with phone call tracking?
Answer: A powerful tool capable of changing the way marketers think about search. Oh, and a specific, credible threat to existing call tracking vendors.

The big announcement

The news came from the official Inside AdWords blog:

Using the technology behind Google Voice, call metrics assigns your campaign a unique phone number which is automatically inserted into your ad on both desktop and high-end mobile devices, where the number is clickable.

AdWords Mobile click-to-call ads have existed for a while, but the foray into desktop search is the real game-changer here. It erases the artificial barrier between tracking calls from a mobile browser versus a desktop search.
The call metrics program is only open to a beta group now through the AdWords Ad Innovations portal. Assuming the launch is deemed successful, it will be rolled out to more advertisers in the coming months. Even the calls are free for now. Calls will soon be charged just like clicks, although it remains to be seen if a call will cost as much as a click.

Industry impact

Personally, I think this is great news for the industry as it allows advertisers greater visibility into the sources of traffic that are actually generating sales and conversions offline.
Anything that raises the profile of call tracking in general is only going to create more efficient markets as advertisers learn the true ROI of their efforts and refine campaigns accordingly. As I’ve said before, only the smart will survive in future PPC markets.
Finally, this will force other call tracking vendors to continue innovating and developing new tools that Google can’t or won’t match. Unless you’re afraid of letting the fox guard the henhouse, I think many advertisers will willingly give up a little flexibility to save money and effort implementing what could become redundant 3rd party solutions.
Advertisers gain insight
Every call tracking vendor will tell you that their service is essential for measuring conversions that take place offline. Without a system to track phone calls generated by online ads and the resulting conversions, a large part of the ROI equation disappears as soon as the caller hangs up.
AdWords advertisers now have a new way to track these calls directly through the Google AdWords interface. It tracks the number of calls right next to the numbers of clicks and online conversions, which is the right way to think about measuring your campaigns’ performance.

Call tracking companies circle the wagons

Sounds like a big threat to the cadre of call tracking providers, right? Yes and no.
Stephen Cravens of Century Interactive (more) was quick to defend “traditional”, more fully-featured phone tracking systems. The main defense? AdWords Call Metrics only works for AdWords. Advertisers that buy ads on Facebook, Bing, or any other online or offline channel are not able to take advantage of the call and conversion tracking capabilities.
Most tools allow for recording of inbound calls and integration with CRM and web analytics platforms.
Finally, AdWords Call Metrics seems to leave out conversion tracking and traditional phone call metrics and analytics.

How to enable AdWords Call Metrics

If your account is included in the beta test or you’ve been granted access, select Phone Extensions from within the Ad Extensions menu.
Then, enable Call Metrics and select a local or toll-free area code. You can’t specify the number (yet) and obviously this doesn’t allow for vanity numbers.

AdWords Call Metrics Settings (click to expand)