Call tracking shows which advert, campaign or page led to a phone call. In Google Ads a Google forwarding number replaces your own in the ad or on your website, records the time, duration and campaign, and rings through to your line. Set a minimum call length, keep calls separate from forms at first, and keep your own number on anything printed.
What does call tracking tell a chauffeur company?
Call tracking tells you which advert, campaign or page led to a phone call. Without it, every call looks the same: the phone rings, you quote, and nobody writes down where the customer came from. Your reports then show form enquiries and leave out everyone who prefers to ring, which makes some campaigns look worse than they are.
It matters most for the bookings people like to discuss by phone: a wedding, a group, a corporate account, a same-day airport run. If those customers ring and your reports only count forms, you may cut the campaign that brings them.
How does it work?
Google Ads does this with a Google forwarding number. Google describes it as “a unique phone number from Google that allows you to track the calls generated by your ads”. The number replaces your own in the advert or on your website, and the call still rings on your line.
- The customer sees a forwarding number It appears in your advert or on your website in place of your own number.
- The customer rings it Google records the time, duration, campaign and ad group.
- Your phone rings as usual The call goes straight through to your business line.
- The call appears in your report Calls over the length you choose count as conversions for that campaign.
Google lists Ireland, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spain and Italy among the countries with forwarding numbers, and it tries to match your local area code. If it has no local number, the advert shows a toll-free one. Check the list for your own country, because the option does not appear in every account.
Which method should you use?
There are four common ways to count calls, and they differ a lot in what they actually measure.
| Method | What it counts | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| Calls from ads | Calls made from the advert itself, through a forwarding number | A first step, with little setup |
| Calls from your website | Calls to a number Google swaps in on your site for visitors who came from an ad | Most companies running Google Ads, because many customers read the page first |
| Clicks on your number | A tap on the phone link, whether or not the call took place | A rough signal only, so keep it out of your main conversions |
| A separate call tracking service | Calls from any source, each with its own number, including search and print | Companies with several channels, at a monthly cost |
Start with calls from ads and calls from your website, since both come with Google Ads. Move to a separate service only if you need to compare channels beyond Google Ads and the extra cost is small against what a booking earns you.
What should count as a real call?
Set a minimum length, because a nine-second call is usually a wrong number or someone who hung up. Google lets you count calls that “last longer than a minimum duration you set”. Listen to what your calls are actually like and choose a length that fits a genuine request for a price. Then review it after a month.
Google can also judge call quality by analysing recordings with AI, but it limits call recording to calls where both parties are in the US or Canada. For a European company, length is the setting you will be working with. Wherever you are, telling callers that a call is recorded is a legal matter to check with your adviser before you switch on any recording.
Keep calls as a separate conversion from forms for the first few weeks. Mixing them straight away makes it hard to see whether a campaign improved or whether you only started counting more things. Google’s automated bidding will also chase whatever you count as a main conversion, so add calls to it only once you trust the numbers.
What are the limits of forwarding numbers?
Forwarding numbers have a few rules that catch people out, and a chauffeur company should know them before printing anything.
- They are for Google Ads only: Google says they “shouldn’t be copied and promoted outside of Google Ads”, and that they can change or be reassigned. Keep your own number on business cards, leaflets and your email signature.
- The first call has a time limit: it must come within about 30 minutes of the person seeing the ad, or up to about 2 hours in some markets. Otherwise it is not routed.
- Repeat callers have a window: calls keep connecting for 60 days after the first call, and each new call restarts the period.
- Turning call reporting off removes the data: adverts then show your own number and the call details report is no longer available.
The time limit matters for someone who sees your ad, waits a day and then rings a number they wrote down. If you take many calls from older customers or from people planning weeks ahead, keep your own number easy to find as well, and do not read a quiet call report as proof that nobody rang.
How do you connect a call to a booking?
A call in a report only shows that someone rang. To learn what it earned, add one question to your routine: at the end of each new call, note where the customer found you and enter the result in your booking system, marked as a phone enquiry. Do this every time for a month and you will see which sources bring bookings, and at what average value.
Then count missed calls too. A call that rang out cost you the same click as one you answered, and it will not show up as lost anywhere unless you record it. The guide on missed call text back covers what to do about them.
With calls and forms in one list, you can work out a truer cost per lead, and the ads limit calculator shows the most each one can cost you.
Does Irish Transfer track calls this way?
Irish Transfer’s Google Ads figures on this site count one conversion: the website enquiry form. Calls, WhatsApp and email clicks are tracked as secondary and left out of those numbers, so its cost per enquiry describes form enquiries only. A submitted form is easy to check against a booking, which a tap on a phone number is not. A company whose customers mostly ring would need to count calls as well.