As digital marketing gets more automated, it’s becoming increasingly important that advertisers feed their advertising platforms with the most accurate data possible.
Why Tracking Calls Matters for Lead Gen
Lead gen advertisers need to not only track the form submissions on their site, but also the calls that their advertising generates. Failure to do so could lead your bidding algorithm to ignore a segment of potential customers solely because they prefer to pick up the phone and call a business, versus putting all their information in an online form.
They want to speak to you when the time is right for them, not wait for you to get around to making contact. Read my previous blog, How Effective Is PPC without Call Tracking?, to learn more.
Impact of Incomplete Call Tracking on Algorithms
By not having a robust call tracking system in place for your digital ads, you are telling the algorithm that the only success metric is the online form. The algorithm only recognizes success as the conversions that are entered into the platform. If you are not counting all the calls generated by your advertising, you are telling the system that those uncounted calls are just as worthless as the person who clicks on your ad and then spends a few seconds on your site before exiting.
Call Tracking Platforms
There are several options available for call tracking, from CallRail to WhatConverts to CallTrackingMetrics. We’ve even built an in-house call tracking system that is available for our clients as an alternative option.
Each platform has its own pros and cons, but they all serve the purpose of communicating phone call conversions to your advertising platforms.
First-Touch Attribution and Its Pitfalls
I recently learned that CallRail and CallTrackingMetrics both default to a first-touch visitor source, meaning if someone first visited your site from an organic source and then later came back via a paid ad, your paid call tracking number will not be displayed through dynamic number insertion. Instead, the number set for organic traffic will always appear for that user, no matter how many paid ads that person clicks.
While you may think to yourself that it’s fine because the user first found your site via an organic source, it may be hurting your marketing campaigns.
Why Paid Clicks Still Matter in the Attribution Chain
If a user clicks on a paid ad at any point before calling you, it’s information that you would want to share with the advertising platform. It’s not to inflate your campaign performance; it’s to tell the algorithm that a particular paid click – or clicks – led to a call versus that user just leaving your site without any positive outcome.
A Google Ads campaign algorithm looks at thousands of user signals and builds up a profile of how someone who is likely to convert behaves and then uses that information to decide what to bid in the auction for the next user. Providing that conversion information, even if the user’s first visit to the site was from another source, is still valuable.
CallRail offers a setting in its platform to override a visitor’s source and show a paid ad’s tracking number starting with the first paid visit to the site.
Evolving Call Tracking Capabilities
These call tracking platforms are also evolving the ways advertisers can utilize call tracking with their campaigns. It used to be that the only way to filter which calls were being sent to the advertising platforms was to set a minimum call duration threshold. But now, you can manually choose which calls are good versus which ones are bad, and then only import the good calls as conversions.
Real-World Examples
One of my clients has his staff mark each good call with a thumbs up, and those calls get imported into his advertising platforms as call conversions. It doesn’t matter if it’s a 30-second voicemail message that gets returned and booked the next day, or a 10-minute call to fully schedule an appointment; both calls get a thumbs up and are sent to the campaign’s algorithm as a positive outcome.
Another client has ecommerce on his site, but he makes most of his sales over the phone because his customers often have a lot of questions before purchasing.
He makes sure to go and give a dollar value to every relevant call from his paid campaigns. If someone calls and buys a $2,000 unit, he puts a value of $2,000 on that call. If someone calls up and asks about a $1,000 unit, and he believes they are 50% likely to make that purchase in the near future, he will value that call at $500.
While not a perfect science with the percentages, he has been talking to these types of customers for years, so he’s pretty good at forecasting these calls. And since he has started doing this, six of the 11 months have set all-time revenue records for that calendar month (not Google Ads reported data, but the overall revenue of the company). And August 2025 – the 11th month – was the best revenue month in company history.
The main difference from before is that he is now providing the algorithms in his ad platforms’ values for these calls.
Complete Data Equals Competitive Advantage
By embracing call tracking as a core part of your digital strategy, you ensure your ad platforms receive the complete picture of how your customers choose to engage. Whether through a form fill or a phone call, every conversion holds valuable insight that helps your campaigns perform at their peak. The more accurate and comprehensive your data, the more effective your algorithms will be at driving qualified leads and revenue. In today’s automated world, investing in robust call tracking isn’t just an option; it’s a competitive advantage.
It’s the magic that accurate and complete conversion data can provide in today’s world of digital advertising. You get out of your advertising what you put in.
