How-to · Updated October 11, 2026
Send calls from your call tracking tool into Google Ads as conversions
Updated October 11, 2026
45 minutes, then a day to confirm
Connect your call tracking tool to Google Ads, send calls that meet your rule to a lead action, and set your lead value: a tool left on its default can send every call at 1. Keep auto-tagging on: website calls need a click ID. Reopen the rule to confirm Google Ads is selected, then test one real call.
Before you start
- Admin access to Google Ads and to your call tracking account. CallTrackingMetrics, for one, asks for a Google user with the Administrator role when it connects.
- Your lead value, the amount one qualifying call is worth to you, or a sale amount your team records per call.
- Your rule for a call worth counting: answered, from an ad source, and past a length or marked by your team.
- A list of the call actions already in Goals, Conversions, Summary, so the import does not count calls something else already counts.
Pick the right kind of import
A call tracking tool that uses its own numbers needs the import keyed by the click ID, not Google's similarly named call import.
- Use the tool's own Google Ads integration, which sends each call as a conversion from an ad click, keyed by the click ID (GCLID, or GBRAID or WBRAID on iOS) the visitor arrived with.
- Leave Google's Import phone call conversions for calls Google itself forwarded. Google matches those files to its own forwarding number calls by the caller's number and start time, so calls on a tool's own numbers do not match.
- In Google Ads, click the Admin icon, click Account settings, then Auto-tagging, and confirm Tag the URL that people click through from my ad is checked. Without it, ad visits carry no click ID, so the tool has nothing Google will accept for those calls.
Connect the tool and set what it sends
This part links the tool to your Google Ads account and decides which calls it sends, to which action, at what value. Screen names vary by tool; in CallTrackingMetrics the integration is under Settings, Integrations, Google Ads Direct Connect.
- Sign in to Google from the integration and connect either your manager account or the single Google Ads account, not both. CallTrackingMetrics warns that connecting both can send conversions to an unexpected account.
- Map your call tracking account to the Google Ads account, then choose an existing conversion action for leads or let the tool create one. CallTrackingMetrics can also add optional separate actions for calls from the ad's call button and for iOS calls.
- Set the value to your lead value. CallTrackingMetrics sends 1 unless you change it, and Google does not accept 0. Where your team records a sale amount per call, send that instead.
- Set the rule for which calls are sent, and use one sending method. CallTrackingMetrics offers integration-wide rules or per-account triggers, and recommends one or the other, not both.
- Save, then reopen the rule and confirm Google Ads is selected as a platform to send to, with your conversion action. CallTrackingMetrics says that if no ad platform is selected, it sends no data.
Settle the counting in Google Ads
Keep one Primary action per call, and give a new action time before the first call is sent.
- If Google's own call action, or a tap action, already counts the same calls as Primary, set one of them to Secondary (observe only) under Goals, Conversions, Summary, Edit goal. Google says two actions counting one call count it twice, and bid for both.
- If the conversion action is new, give it 4 to 6 hours before the first call is sent. Google says uploads in that window can take 2 days to appear.
- Turn on enhanced conversions for leads if calls arrive without a click ID. CallTrackingMetrics says its integration sends them automatically once the account is set to receive them.
Calls from the ad's own call button need two things together: the tool's number in the call asset, and call reporting on, so Google's forwarding number sits on top of it and both systems see the call and can pass attribution between them. These calls have no click ID; CallTrackingMetrics can send them to a separate call-button action. It advises turning call reporting on account-wide.
Check it worked
Prove it with one real call. Search for your ad on a phone, click through to your site (the click is charged), call the number shown, and stay on past your rule's length.
In the tool's integration log, the call should show a click ID and a sent or processed status. CallTrackingMetrics' log lists the conversion name, value, click ID and process status for each call.
In Google Ads, open Goals, Conversions, Summary. Google says processing usually takes less than 12 hours, or up to 72 hours for conversions keyed by GBRAID or WBRAID, and the conversion is filed under the date of the ad click. The All conv. (by conv. time) column shows it by the conversion time the tool sent: for a lead rule, when the call ended.
Calls the tool tracks but cannot send
A website caller who found the number somewhere other than an ad visit (a sign, a printed card, a directory), or who never clicked an ad, has no click ID, and CallTrackingMetrics says Google only accepts conversions with one. Those calls stay in the tool's reports. Enhanced conversions for leads is the route Google offers for leads without one.
A call from the ad's call button is a separate case: it has no click ID, and reaches Google through call reporting and the tool's call-button action rather than this rule.
Why a value of 1 matters
Every call arriving at 1 looks like value data in the Conv. value column, but it only counts calls. Bidding that aims at value learns no more from it than from a count, and any return on ad spend read from it is meaningless.