Why Counting Every Call as a Conversion Hurts Your Google Ads
Sending every phone call to Google Ads as a conversion feels like progress. It can actually teach Smart Bidding to find the wrong people. Here is a better approach.
Getting phone calls into Google Ads as conversions is one of the best things a business that relies on calls can do. Doing it badly can be worse than not doing it at all.
The problem
Smart Bidding finds more of whatever you tell it is a conversion. If every call counts, it learns to find people who call. That includes:
- Existing customers ringing about a job in progress
- Suppliers and job seekers
- Sales calls and robots
- People who ring the wrong business
- People who hang up after a few seconds
Over time, the algorithm can drift towards searches and audiences that produce lots of calls of little value. Your cost per conversion looks great. Your actual enquiries do not improve.
A better set of rules
Only send calls that look like real leads. A good starting point:
- First-time callers only
- Calls over 60 seconds
- Not flagged as spam
- A lead score above a threshold, such as 60 out of 100
If you can, add a second conversion action for calls that end in a booking, and give it a higher value.
Use values
Not every lead is worth the same. If a boiler install is worth ten times a service, tell Google. Conversion values let you move to value-based bidding, so your campaigns chase the calls that bring in the most money.
Give it time
After changing conversion actions, give Smart Bidding two to four weeks before judging results. Avoid changing budgets, bidding strategies and conversion settings all at once.
How to set this up
Our step-by-step guide to Google Ads call conversions covers the settings in Google Ads and in Call Tracked. The short version: auto-tagging on, website tracking installed, Google Ads connected, and rules that only send calls that count.