Microsoft Ads Call Extensions: using MS Ads' call forwarding number vs your own number

Question

Microsoft Ads Call Extensions: using MS Ads' call forwarding number vs your own number

Anonymous

For Microsoft Ads call extensions, I understand that there is NO reporting of clicks, conversions, ad groups, etc if you use your own phone number for call extensions. You only get reporting if you use a Microsoft Advertising forwarding number.

But, on https://help.ads.microsoft.com/#apex/ads/en/56813/1, it states: "To get a Microsoft Advertising forwarding number, an ad group within a campaign using Call Extensions must have at least 10 clicks and $10.00 in spend for the previous month's billing cycle." If there is NO conversion/click tracking if you use your own phone number, how can you get "at least 10 clicks and $10.00 in spend" if there is no tracking for the calls with your own phone number?

NOTE - this question turned into a question about what happens when you use your own number in the Call Extensions vs using Microsoft Ads' forwarding number. I summarized what I understood are the differences in my reply to Microsoft Advertising - Dagmara's answer, below.

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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2 additional answers

Answer 1

Hello Anders60661,

Thank you for contacting the Microsoft Advertising Community forum!

With Call Extensions, you can display a phone number directly in your search ad on PC, tablet, or smartphone, and get calls from customers who either select or dial the number in the ad. You can either use your own phone number or use a Microsoft Advertising forwarding phone number. Call forwarding is only available in the AU, UK, and US markets.

When using a forwarding number, Microsoft Advertising assigns a unique phone number that displays in the ad. When a customer calls this number, the call is routed to your business phone number. The Microsoft Advertising forwarding number allows you to track all calls from the ad, no matter where the call was made from, so that they can analyze the ad performance. All advertisers will default to using a local area-code number when you opt into using Microsoft Advertising forwarding number.

Ability to set up in: All Bing markets.

Serves in: Available in all Bing markets on smartphones only, except for Belgium and China. Available on PC devices for Bing, AOL, and Yahoo syndicated search partner sites only.

Call-only ads

When using both non-metered and metered call extensions, you have the option to set up their call extension to deliver as call-only ads on mobile.

Selecting the highlighted option will cause the ad title to be replaced by the phone number when the call extension delivers on mobile devices.

Q1: What is happening with Call Extensions on PC traffic? Why are Call Extensions not serving on PC traffic?

A1: Call Extensions are serving on smartphones only, except for Belgium and China. Available on PC devices for Bing, AOL, and Yahoo syndicated search partner sites only.

Q2: What calls can be tracked through reporting?

A2: When you choose Call Extensions on all devices you use a Microsoft Advertising forwarding number for your ad and have access to reports that provide insights, such as call duration and missed calls, on all calls that your ads have generated.

With the Call Details report, you can track details such as call start and end time, missed and completed calls, call duration, and call type.
With Account, Campaign, and Ad Group performance reports, you can track metrics such as phone impression count, call count, phone-through rate and phone spend.
With the Ad Extension by Ad and Ad Extension by Keyword reports, you can track details such as click type, impressions, and clicks.

When you choose Call Extensions on all devices using your own phone number, you display your own phone number in the ad. These numbers on a smartphone are clickable, and a click on the phone number results in a call and is tracked as a click in performance reports. Performance reporting is available at the account, campaign, ad group, and extension level. We also provide click type information (phone call versus ad title) at the extension level. The numbers on a PC/tablet ad are not clickable.

Q3: If an advertiser has Call Extensions enabled, will it serve with every impression of that ad?

A3: It is possible that publishers may have their own user experience treatment flights, in which case (minority scenarios) ads may show up without a call extension. This can happen only for a fraction of all query volume. Note that the phone extension will be displayed more frequently on first and second position. Attempt to get the average position in this range to ensure the best delivery.

Q4: Does this feature only work when device targeting is set to smartphone?

A4: Call Extensions and Location Extensions can be shown with ads for all campaigns. However, if you are creating a Call Extension intended for smartphones only, make sure that the device targeting settings for your campaign includes smartphone devices.

Q5: If you are advertising for numerous different locations and can only set up one Call Extension per campaign, what are some best practices?

A5: It is worth noting that it is not guaranteed that the same area code local number will be assigned to phone numbers operating across multiple locations.

Q6: I'm running a forwarding number campaign and the budget ran out. Will it redirect to the actual phone number?

A6: When the campaign is paused, we also temporarily stop routing calls for those numbers. This will block most calls you would normally receive from the forwarding number. However, the number will remain available in the campaign for another month, so if a campaign gets re-enabled, ads will start serving with the same forwarding number and calls will be routed to your business.

Q7: Why can't I get Call Extensions to show the Microsoft Advertising forwarding number?

A7: To get a Microsoft Advertising forwarding number, an ad group within a campaign using Call Extensions must meet the performance and spend criteria noted in the Call Extensions: Add a phone number help article.

Until the criteria are met (including for new campaigns and ad groups), you will still be able to select the forwarding number options, but the ad groups will deliver with the advertiser's phone number only on smartphone devices and without any phone number on desktop and tablet devices.

As soon as an ad group becomes eligible, it automatically gets assigned the forwarding number for that campaign and ads will start serving with a forwarding number.

Q8: What happens if an advertiser has a local valid number and requests a local number?

A8: The system tries to assign a number from the same area code as the advertiser's phone number, but the number may not be available. In that case, another area code may be assigned.

Q9: Why don't I see my Call Extension calls in the Call Forwarding report?

**A9:**We can only track calls made through a forwarding number.

Q10: So why did my Call Extension deliver on PC?

A10: We are flighting Call Extensions on PC, so some delivery is possible.

Q11: Why doesn't my Call Extension look like the help page screenshots?

**A11:**We are constantly flighting different UX and cannot guarantee appearance at this time.

Q12: Why do I see calls without impressions?

A12: If someone saves the forwarding number and calls back later, there will be a call in the Call Forwarding report without an impression.

Q13: Can I get conversion tracking for calls?

A13: We don't currently support that directly. Advertisers can use offline conversions and third-party solutions as a workaround:

Q14: Can I set up a call-only ad?

A14: Not fully. Targeting only mobile and setting the Call Extension to "Show just my phone number" will result in a call-only ad most of the time but it will deliver as a regular ad if the extension doesn't deliver.

For more information on Call Extensions:

I hope you find this reply informative. I will send you a private message to assist you further if needed.

Sincerely,

Dagmara | Microsoft Advertising Support | 1(800)-518-5689

Answer 2

Anonymous

Hello Anders60661,

Thank you for your message!

Unfortunately, we don't have call ads like Google.

I saw your private message, I will reply to it shortly.

Sincerely,

Dagmara | Microsoft Advertising Support | 1(800)-518-5689

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Answer 3

Thank you so much for your response! As a small service provider, the above helps a lot since almost all of our conversions are from phone calls.

Let me try to summarize what you presented to ensure I understand all you gave me:

In a Microsoft call extension, you can: 1) use your own number or 2) use Microsoft's call forwarding number which will ha a local area phone number. If you use Microsoft's call forwarding number:

Calls to the forwarding numbers are routed to your business phone number.
Visitors don't see your main office number, they see the unique call-forwarding number instead.
Because it is a forwarding number, the calls are tracked whether the user clicks the call link or manually dials the phone.
The calls get charged via a cost per click the same way you get charged for a click on a link in your ad.
Statistics will be added to the call forwarding report where you can see the calls' start/end times and durations by the campaign and ad group. See the "Call forwarding detail" report in Microsoft Ads' reports section.
Calls are then shown as clicks in the campaign, ad group, keyword, and ad reports (in Google Ads, the number of calls is displayed in a phone call column). I don't know if there is a way to determine if the click is from a call from an ad or from a click on the ad in these reports.
Calls are never shown as conversions (in Google Ads, you can specify that a call greater than, for example, 60 seconds is a conversion). In order to report call conversions, you will need to manually go into the above call report and count the number of calls that are, for example, over 60 seconds.
Note: in order to use the call forwarding number, Call Extensions must have at least 10 clicks and $10.00 in spend from the previous month's billing cycle. I don't know if you need the monthly amount every month or if you just need it once to set up the call forwarding number.

If you use your own number:

Visitors will see your main office number (or whatever number you add).
You get charged as you do for clicks, as above.
The phone numbers on desktop/tablet ads are not clickable, so there will be no reporting for calls from desktops/tablets - only phone number clicks on smartphones are reported.
There is NO call report, so you won't know the number of calls over, for example, 60 seconds, so you won't be able to create a manual conversion report.
Calls are then shown as clicks in the reporting, as above. If you can't differentiate where a click came from, I don't really know how you can determine how the call extensions are doing by campaign, ad group, etc. However, you can apparently view click-type information (phone call versus ad title) in extension reports.
Calls are never shown as conversions, as above.

Also, for both of the above, there is no way to track clicks on a phone number in your website from an ad like Google Ads has.

Let me know what I'm missing. Thanks!!

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Microsoft Ads Call Extensions: using MS Ads' call forwarding number vs your own number

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