More and more people are finding businesses through search results on a mobile phone. Research by Google* has shown that 70% of mobile searchers call a business directly from the search results.

As a number owner, you can take advantage of this by optimizing your website to rank as high as possible for relevant organic search results, but also by making smart use of tools like Google Adwords.

In the past, we’ve already discussed how you can increase the number of calls to your service number using this method.

Since this spring, Adwords offers a new type of ad specifically designed for this purpose: Call-Only Ads.

In this article, we explain what Call-Only Ads are, what the possibilities are, and how you as a number owner can use these ads yourself.

What Are Call-Only Ads?

Call-Only Ads are ads optimized to encourage people to call you.

Instead of a clickable link that leads to your website, these ads have a clickable link that initiates a phone call.

Upgrade from Call Extensions

Something similar could already be done with the so-called call extensions in Adwords.

However, the new ad type is much easier to set up and allows you to track calls from ads directly in your Adwords statistics.

This way, you can better track your conversions and optimize your ads.

If you already have ads using call extensions, Google provides a step-by-step guide on how to upgrade them to Call-Only campaigns.

Use Cases for Number Owners

This type of ad is perfect for lead generation for phone sales.

It goes without saying that Call-Only Ads are very interesting for a large group of number owners.

Over the past few months, we’ve spoken to many customers who are already using them.

Please note: Google does not allow you to use this ad type to generate calls to paid numbers (e.g., 0900, 0909, or 0906 numbers). For this, you’ll need to continue using the classic Adwords ad types.

To generate calls to non-paid numbers, such as 088-, 085-, or local numbers, you can effectively use these Call-Only Ads.

Creating Call-Only Ads

Want to see how many extra calls Call-Only Ads can generate for your service number? Log in to Adwords and create your own campaign.

A step-by-step guide can be found here.