Should Google Ad Call Conversions be a Primary or Secondary Conversion?

I've managed many Google Ad Campaigns over the years, and close to 99% of all lead gen campaigns I've managed had phone numbers on their website. I've typically set up conversion tracking for calls and have used the Google Ad Call Extension.

I set up all call conversions as "Primary Conversions" in Google Ads so I can optimize the campaign to increase call conversions in addition to all other Primary Conversions I'm tracking, like form submissions and offline conversions.

Lately, however, I've ran into come clients that don't count phone calls as a true lead or conversion even though they have the phone # on their website. They only care about form submission leads.

Obviously, I hate not getting credit for a lead just because they decided to call the phone # on the website instead of submitting a form. The way I figure it, if the client didn't want leads taking a certain action on their website, like placing a call, then they shouldn't have that option available because it's going to lower our cost per conversion on the one action they care about; form submissions.

Removing phone numbers from a site is not an easy ask for most clients, however.

Instead of removing the call conversion, I'll typically just make it a Secondary Conversion in Google Ads. You still want to track call conversions no matter what otherwise you won't be able to track offline conversions coming from calls which is crucial.

As your campaign generates more offline conversion data and you optimize the campaign to increase offline conversions, the campaign will gradually begin to weed out the lower quality calls.

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