Google Changes “Call-Only” Ads to “Call” Ads – Allows for Addition of Website Link

This past week, Google has introduced a change to their call-only ads. Previously, a call-only campaign would show on a mobile device with the only option being to call the business directly from the ad. With this change, while the primary action in the headline is still calling the business, there is now an additional optional link at the bottom of the ad that reads “visit website.”

There are a few benefits to incorporating this new link into your call ads. First, it makes your ad larger – taking up more valuable real estate on a phone screen thus pushing your competition further down the page. Secondly, according to Google, this will also lead to fewer accidental calls, obviously leading to the calls being more qualified. I’m personally a bit skeptical about this statement, but I can’t see any way this would hurt or lead to less qualified calls, so I’ll take their word for it.

My biggest concern with call-only ads was always “Well, what if someone would rather go to the website and look around?” With the change now to call ads, this fear is essentially settled because both options are now available, with the primary goal of driving phone calls still intact.

This is an optional addition to your current call ads, and will not enable by default. In order to take advantage of this, you must either create new call ads or edit your current ones by adding your landing page to the Final URL field. As of today, this option currently isn’t available in Editor, so you will need to make these updates within the Google Ads interface.