Google Ads Call Extensions or Call Only Ads? Which Is Better for Google Ads in 2023

If you're a service based company running Google Ads in 2023, you need to be running call only ads. And the reason for that is because over the past 12 months I've been testing the results of call only ads versus normal search ads. And the results are astounding. With my normal search ads generating a cost per conversion for phone calls at $28 per call versus my call only ads that were getting cost per conversions for phone calls at only $14, that's half the acquisition costs. And if you don't believe me, let's now take a look at those results. So you can see here we're looking at the data for all of 2022. So from the 1st of January through the 31st of December. And what we've got here is we've got one search based campaign and then we've got two call only campaigns that were broken to two different regions. Now when we look at the data, you can see here that for these call only campaigns they did have a higher CPU CPC. It was a good amount. So you're ranging at $3.50 for your normal search versus our call only going at $6 or very close to $6 per click. But where this becomes powerful is when you really start looking at those conversion rates for these call only campaigns. They are running at 43 and 38% conversion rate versus that 18% conversion rate for your normal search campaign. And this is where the cost per conversions got really real. And when we actually combined these amounts, so these 91 phone calls and these 34 phone calls versus the combined cost, that at $14.52 versus these 182 calls from the search campaign that came in at that $28.19. So yes, call only campaigns will come at a more expensive traffic cost, but when you get them right, you get those much higher conversion rates and much lower acquisition costs. And by this data showing you over a 12 month period, those acquisition costs were more than half to get that phone ringing for this business. So now that you know, one of the main benefits of running call only campaigns is that you, you get those phone calls at a much lower cost. And by the data that I showed you that those acquisition costs for each phone call was half the price. So rather than paying $28, we're getting each phone call for $14. And I do need to stress that that was a phone call that lasted more than 30 seconds. But apart from the much better conversion data, which should be enough in itself, I do want to share with you some of the core other benefits by running call only ads and the main extra benefit is, is that you get a whole lot of new data that you can't see when you're going after emails or form completions. And the difference is, is that when you run call only ads and you've got that core tracking activated within your Google Ads account, you can see a whole nother dimension to your data and that includes the user's phone number. So you can actually see the phone number of the person who rang. You can also see the time of the call, the duration of the call and when you set it right. You can even see the keyword that, that the user used to trigger the ad which then made them call your business. And straight away I don't need to tell you how important that information is, especially if you're running the campaign on behalf of another business, so you're their digital agency or you're a freelancer, you're then able to download that information and give your client the exact phone numbers for the lead generation from your Google Ads account. And that can all be done within Google Ads which without having to pay for expensive third party plugins or third party programs. And right now let me show you where you can see this data. Okay, so we're back in Google Ads now to see this data. Where you need to go is you need to go up into this report section and then you need to go into this predefined reports dimensions into assets, legacy and then you want to go into call details. So as soon as that reports come up you can see that when the call was made, you can see the call duration and you can also see that caller phone number. But if you want to go through and actually see the keyword, all you need to do is to go over into here in this little search box, type in search keyword and then from there this also gives you the search keyword that was used in order to trigger your ad, which then triggered the call. So now you know why you need to run call only ads in your Google search campaigns. Especially if you're marketing a service based business. I want to take you through the step by step process and how you can set up ad and have call only ads running in your own campaign. But before we get to that quick step by step process, I do want to stress that for success and by success I mean profit in your Google Ads search campaigns. You also need to make sure that you've got a very clear optimization strategy. And this is an optimization strategy where you know exactly what you need to be optimizing on any given day within your Google Ads campaign. And you don't need to stress because I've got you covered. You're to going because right now I want to give you free access to my Google Ads Optimization checklist. Now this checklist not only lists out every single optimization action that you need to be completing for a profitable Google Ads campaign, it also lets you know exactly which ones you need to complete monthly and which ones you need to complete every three months. So to get your Google Ads Optimization checklist, just follow that link in the description below. But right now let's get into that screen share so I can show you those quick steps and how to set up Google your very own call ads. So to get your call only campaigns running, just go into new campaign and then from there we want to go into this leads option. Now one thing that you will need to make sure is that we haven't got this set up yet, but I will show you how to set this up is that if you've already got a phone lead connected to this account, this will come into here and you can select it here. But if not, we're just going to go into Continue and you want to go to search and then you want to make sure that you're selecting this phone call option and then from there you just go through so we're obviously based in Australia. And then from there you want to put in the phone number. Now one thing that I do want to stress is that this phone number does also need to appear on your website, otherwise it won't be approved. For this example, I'm just going to put in phone calls as the campaign name. But you can put in any campaign name. But as always recommend when it comes to that naming convention, make sure it's something that makes sense to you. Then we click Continue and then from there we just need to go through the current steps. Now I've got other videos which talk about all of these setup options, but for this one I just want to really take you through the core campaign. So we're going to select Australia because for this one I want to be targeting all of Australia. The only thing that I would say with core campaigns is, is that I would generally also go into location options and also select this presence option. And the reason for that is because I only want people from Australia to call me, not those people that are interested in Australia. And what I found is it just does help lock out some of that spammy type calls which you can receive. Now if You've watched any of my videos, you know how much I recommend that you add in audience segments. So I'd highly recommend that you add these in. Once again, we won't do this right now because I've got other training videos on that. And then go to Next and then from there it's just a process of going through and setting up your keywords and your ads. Now what I will do at the end of this video is I will share a link with you on how to set up a proper search campaign so you can go through this whole process. But I'm just going to go ahead and settle this up here now. Okay, so from here we've got our ad group, we've got all of our keywords and I've already gone through and put in our URL and the display path of call. Aaron. Now when it comes to call ads they are a little bit different in that you are only allowed to have two headlines and two descriptions and then you also have your business name. Okay, so what we've done here is we've now gone through and we've added in our headlines and we've also, you have to add in the business name and we've also got those two descriptions to get that conversion data. What you want to do now is that you want to go to this conversion action and we want to use, you can either use the account settings calls from ads, but I'm just going to select calls from ads and what this does is that by using that calls from ads settings it will automatically set up that conversion reporting and you'll have that data that you can see up in that reporting function. Remember dimensions go into assets, legacy and then call details and then from there we just go through add in our budget and click Next and then publish the campaign. And that's the process for how you can set up that search campaign so that you've got those call only ads active within that campaign. And like I said as I was going through that process, if you want to go through and watch my full step by step process in how to set up a Google search campaign so that all you need to do is just to make sure you select that call function at the time same start of the setup. I want you to go through and watch this video right here. Once again, thank you for joining me. My name's Aaron Young from Define Digital Academy and I'm your 15,000 hour Google Ads master and I look forward to seeing you in that next video right now. See ya.