How-to · Updated October 11, 2026
Track calls from your website in Google Ads
Updated October 11, 2026
30 minutes, then an hour before testing
If no call tracking tool runs on your site, create a Calls from website visits action in Google Ads and add Google's phone snippet to every page showing your number. If a tool already swaps numbers there, skip Google's snippet and send calls from the tool instead: two number-swapping scripts on one page interfere.
Before you start
- Access to Google Ads. You need to be able to create conversion actions under Goals.
- Call reporting turned on, in a country with Google forwarding numbers. The forwarding number only appears on your site when call reporting is on in account settings.
- A way to add code to your site, and your number as the site shows it. Add code directly or through Google Tag Manager; Google's snippet needs the exact digits on the page.
- Whether a call tracking tool already runs on the site. If visitors from different sources see different numbers, a call tracking tool (or Google's own snippet, already installed) is swapping them.
Choose one script to swap your number
Only one script should ever change the phone number on your site.
- If a call tracking tool already swaps numbers on the site, do not add Google's snippet. CallTrackingMetrics, for one, says its code "must be the only call tracking script running on your site" and that other dynamic number scripts on the same site "will interfere". Send calls from the tool to Google Ads through its own integration instead, and stop here.
- If no tool runs, Google's forwarding numbers on your site cost nothing. They count calls from people who clicked an ad, then called the number shown on your site, and by default only one number per page can be tracked.
- Decide before you build. A call tracking tool usually also records calls and covers visitors from other sources; Google's snippet is free and counts ad visitors only. Either is a sound choice; running both is not.
Create the conversion action
Google Ads creates the action first and then hands you the snippet for your site.
- In Google Ads, go to Summary within the Goals menu and select + Create conversion action.
- Select Conversions from phone calls, then Save and Continue, and choose Phone call lead as the conversion category.
- Select +Conversion action, then Calls from website visits.
- Select Someone calls a number shown on my website, add your phone number, and select Save and continue.
Put the snippet on your site
The Google tag and the phone snippet go on every page where your number appears.
- Choose how to install: yourself, by email to your web developer, or with Google Tag Manager.
- Installing yourself, add the Google tag to every page, then the phone snippet with phone_conversion_number set to your number exactly as the page shows it, including any relevant country code.
- If the number does not swap, or appears in several places, you can set phone_conversion_css_class and add that class to each element holding the number; Google lists it as optional.
- On a mobile page where the number is a tap-to-call link, use the snippet's callback so it replaces both the number shown and the number dialed.
- In Tag Manager, click Tags, then New, then Tag Configuration, and select Google Ads Calls from Website Conversion. Enter the number as displayed in national format without a plus sign, add the Conversion ID and Label, attach a trigger, save, and publish.
Google says it can take up to an hour for your ads to be enabled for the new action.
Check it worked
After an hour, search for your ad and click it (the click is charged). Your regular number on the site should now show as a Google forwarding number. Before testing again, delete the "gwcc" cookie from your browser.
If you chose a call tracking tool instead, go to Summary within the Goals menu: a calls from website visits action that still records new calls usually means Google's snippet, or its Tag Manager tag, is still running on a page beside the tool's script.
Limits of Google's forwarding numbers
Google says a caller's first call connects only if it comes within about 30 minutes of viewing the ad, up to about 2 hours in some markets, though most calls come within 5 minutes. After that, the number keeps connecting for 60 days from each call.
The numbers belong to Google and can change, so they cannot be used anywhere outside call reporting and website call tracking.
Verifying the phone number when a tool swaps it
Google says that on a site using number insertion or third-party call tracking, its automated check cannot verify your phone number by scanning the page. Linking Google Search Console to Google Ads verifies the domain instead; the link takes 24 hours, and call assets then need resubmitting for review.
On such a site Google also says its Tag Manager install option "isn't recommended", and that "Instead, you can link your Google Search Console to Google Ads or install the tag yourself."