Why should I use a separate call tracking platform when Google Ads offers call forwarding?

Advantages of utilizing CTM’s call tracking in addition to your Google Ads

Our sales and support teams field great questions from customers all day. One question that they frequently receive is the issue of call tracking itself – why not simply take advantage of Google Ads’ call forwarding, especially when they’re already using other Google marketing software?

For a definitive answer, we reached out to our resident Google expert and Product Coach, Jessica Michaels. She’s been working hard building out many of the resources in our Training Hub, including a few webinars and live courses that cover our Google Ads and Analytics integrations, so we appreciate her taking the time to answer this popular question for us!

Jess, why should a user of Google Ads bother with a call tracking provider like CallTrackingMetrics, rather than use call forwarding through Google Ads?

This is a great question that comes up all the time. CallTrackingMetrics is a Google Certified Partner, and we like to view ourselves as the perfect compliment to Google’s ad platform. With that said, there are several advantages of utilizing CTM’s call tracking in addition to your Google Ads.

Google does offer it’s own brand of DNI and call forwarding, which will swap the “target phone number” on your landing page with a Google Forwarding number.

Here are some of the advantages of using our DNI::

1. Our platform can track all your advertising channels, both online and offline.
   • Googles call forwarding offers limited reporting, providing you with metrics like:
   • The call start and end time
   • Callers area code
   • Duration of the call in seconds
   • Call type (mobile click-to-call or manual dial)
2. CallTrackingMetrics offers valuable features besides tracking phone calls, including:
   • Call Recordings
   • Call Scoring and Call Conversions
   • Call Transcriptions
   • Ownership of your own tracking numbers
   • Multi-touch and multi channel attribution
   • Call Routing options, and the ability to automate call flows.

Another exciting fact is that CTM has a direct integration with Google Analytics, which allows you to see your call data in conjunction with your website traffic. Adding this integration would allow you to create Goals around those phone calls. Then, you can further qualify what you’d like to count as a goal completion in Analytics, and send it into Google Ads as a Conversion.

Marketers love how CallTrackingMetrics not only provides them with keyword-level attribution for their phone calls but, thanks to our call scores, we can actually help them measure the quality of those calls. Our platform also has the ability to log form submission and text messages, which is a great way to round out your lead and conversion data.

Want to learn more from Jessica Michaels? Check out her published resources in our Training Hub, or keep an eye out for her upcoming live training courses in September. 

We also have more information our integrations with Google Ads, Google Marketing Suite (formerly DoubleClick), and Google Analytics. Check out our Help Center for step-by-step instructions to set up the integrations in your account.