Now all US and Canada advertisers can get more phone calls and detailed call reporting

Call Metrics, a simple way to get more phone calls and detailed call reports with AdWords, is now available to all advertisers in the US and Canada. Availability was limited since the introduction in November 2010, so thanks for holding.

Call Metrics works by assigning and placing a toll-free forwarding number next to your ad text on Google search pages. When a user sees your ad and calls the number, AdWords registers the call and forwards it to your business. So far, we’ve connected over 5 million calls for thousands of businesses. And calls generated from ads using Call Metrics last six minutes, on average.

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Vijay Malavia, Associate Search Director at interactive agency Razorfish, manages search campaign strategy and results on behalf of his client ADT, the largest US electronic security service provider. With its broad mix of services and customer profiles, ADT considers both the web and phone to be important customer acquisition channels. Vijay describes the benefits of Call Metrics he’s seen for ADT:

"Since we’ve started using Call Metrics, we've seen average daily call volume in the ADT call center increase. Quality of inbound calls has been solid -- duration and conversion metrics are consistent with other sources. In addition to providing convenience and getting more calls, having integrated reporting has made it much easier to project the total value ADT is getting from both calls and clicks from AdWords. And that's helped us make better optimization and budget decisions."

We’re also announcing a few other changes with this launch:

1. More detailed reporting. In March we enhanced Call Metrics reporting to show the time, duration, and caller area code for each call. Based on advertiser feedback, we’re now making reporting available at the ad group and campaign level for manually-dialed calls (subject to minimum volume). And you’ll still be able to segment reports to compare how many calls were received from mobile clicks-to-call and how many were manually dialed after the ad was shown on a desktop, notebook, or tablet computer.

2. New pricing for certain calls. A $1 USD (or equivalent in CAD) charge applies to manually dialed calls completed to your Google forwarding numbers. These calls occur when a potential customer on a desktop, notebook or tablet computer sees your ad and dials the number shown.

Pricing for mobile clicks-to-call remains unchanged, whether you use Call Metrics or not. They continue to be charged as regular mobile search ad clicks.

3. Call Extensions replace Phone Extensions. To reduce possible ambiguity, we’ve renamed Phone Extensions to Call Extensions.

In a future release, we plan to incorporate calls into Ad Rank calculations, which determine an ad’s position and cost per click. At that time, you’ll be able to influence your ad position by specifying a bid per call greater than $1.00 USD. This will parallel the way that clickthrough rate (CTR) and max CPC bids can influence Ad Rank today.

To get started with Call Metrics, sign into AdWords and click on the Ad Extensions tab. Select Call Extensions in the shaded View drop down box. Select your country, then enter the business phone number where you’d like to receive calls for this campaign. Finally, select the check box for Call metrics.

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You’ll find many more details and answers to frequently asked questions in the AdWords Help Center.

Posted by Surojit Chatterjee, AdWords Product Manager