Google Announces Click-to-Call Enhancements in AdWords Ads

In an email today from Google to AdWords advertisers, Google announced enhancements to their click-to-call functionality in AdWords ad text. This is important information to have because these enhancements will impact charges on clicks to these phone numbers.

What are the enhancements and how do they affect charges on your click-to-call ads?

Here’s the skinny:

• To enhance ads for mobile users, all non-clickable numbers displayed in your ads will be converted to a click-to-call number. This is really important to note if you’ve been using your phone number in your ad text, as you will start to incur extra charges if searchers click on your number.
• If you are currently using both a call extension and a phone number in your ad text, only the newly clickable phone number (in your ad text) will show. Google states that their intention here is to reduce confusion for users in knowing which number to click.
• If you would like your call extension number to display, you need to delete your phone number from your existing ad. Google notes that you’ll receive an additional line of ad text displaying your phone number if you use a call extension. This is a win/win situation: your phone number still displays without needing to take up limited characters in your ad text.

So, if you have a phone number currently in your ad, you don’t have to edit your ad to make the number clickable. But if you want to maximize your ad copy space, you should consider using AdWords’ call extension feature to free up those characters.

What do you think about this enhancement from Google? Are you advertising a phone number in your ads that you don’t want to be clickable? Do you see any downside to this, or in the ever-expanding world of mobile users do you see this as only a positive? Let us know in the comments below.

As always, thanks for reading and stay tuned for more updates from PPC Hero!