If you’re using Google PPC for your online advertising, there are some interesting things happening when it comes to your options. Now, with Google’s enhanced campaigns, you have more flexibility on the phone number you place in the call extension. And when you pair these new developments with Ifbyphone’s call tracking and reporting, you’ve got a winning combination.

Let’s take a look at the details and what this means for you.

Google’s legacy campaigns

Eventually Google will have everyone using enhanced campaigns, but for now you can still choose to use legacy campaigns. With legacy campaigns, Google charges $1.00 for any call placed to a Google forwarding number. Whether your audience is dialing the number on your ad manually after seeing it on their computer, or clicking the “Call” button that appears in place of the full number on mobile devices, you’re charged a flat rate of $1.00 for that call. As for the data you see about engagement with the ad, it’s pretty simple: total calls, impressions, clicks, etc.

 Google’s enhanced campaigns

With the new enhanced campaigns, calls to the phone number in your ad are free if they are manually dialed, and you are able to place the phone number of your choice in the ad’s call extension. Mobile users are not shown the actual phone number on their device, only the “Call” button, so this means you will still be charged for every call that comes from mobile. That cost is no longer a flat rate however: you will end up paying about the cost of a standard ad click from mobile devices. When it comes to desktop users, they are shown the full phone number, and if they manually dial it on their phone to connect with you, you will not be charged.

When it comes to data, the enhanced campaigns provide a lot more information about engagement with the ad: if someone calls the number on your ad, you can see the call start time, the call end time, whether the call was received or missed, and more. Enhanced campaigns provide enhanced reporting on your call extensions.

Taking it a step further with Ifbyphone

Now, what if a user sees your ad, but instead of calling immediately they click through to your website or to one of your landing pages, and then place a call? How do you track these phone leads back to the original source? Or what if a user sees your ad and writes down the number, intending to call later? You don’t own the Google forwarding number – Google does. So there’s no guarantee that the phone number the visitor wrote down will still connect to your business.

In both of these examples, you lost the ability to track that phone lead. So how do you handle these situations?

With Ifbyphone.

By placing a unique phone number provided by Ifbyphone—a number you own—into the call extension of your ad, you can track calls from PPC back to the campaign, adgroup, or even the individual ad. You can see the domain or specific landing page that generated the call, and you won’t miss out on the analytics because we provide all the same data that Google provides in its enhanced campaigns: call duration, whether the call was missed or received, all of that. We even show you the full caller ID of the person who called your business.

If you want to track calls down to the keyword level and still have all of the call detail described above, we can do that too. For PPC searches and organic search queries, Ifbyphone can tell you which keywords are providing the best return for your business. We can even send calls from paid search as conversions back into Adwords with our Google Analytics integration.

Google enhanced campaigns provide additional flexibility, and Ifbyphone takes it a step further with its call tracking and analytics combo. Together, you’ve got the whole package that will enable you to deliver measureable ad campaigns and a clear picture of your ROI.