Phone-through rate (PTR)

Source: Google Ads Help, Analyze call reporting data.

A phone impression counts each time your number shows, in a call asset under a search ad or in a call ad. A phone call counts each call made from it: a tap on the number on a phone, or a Google forwarding number dialled from a computer. Both rely on call reporting being on.

Think of it as the click-through rate of the number. CTR tells you how many people went to the site. PTR tells you how many picked up the phone instead.

What moves it

Hours come first. A number shown at 11 pm gets fewer calls than at 11 am, and a call nobody answers is worse than no call. Schedule call assets for the hours someone picks up; see ad schedule.

Device comes next. A call costs one tap on a phone and real effort on a computer. Then the search itself: urgent needs, a blocked drain or a broken lock, call far more than research searches do.

A worked example

A plumbing firm shows its number on every search ad. In October it has 2,400 phone impressions and 84 calls, a PTR of 3.5%.

Split by hour, 8 am to 6 pm has 1,500 phone impressions and 75 calls, 5%. The evening has 900 and 9 calls, 1%. Nobody answers after 6 pm, so those 9 calls reached voicemail. The firm schedules the call asset for office hours and lets the site take evening requests.

1. Check that call reporting is on, under Admin, then Account settings.
2. Open Campaigns, click the Columns icon, then Modify columns.
3. In Call details, tick Phone calls, Phone impr. and PTR.
4. Click Segment, then Time, then Hour of day, or segment by Device, to see where calls come from.

Optizads works out Phone-through rate from two stored sums: Calls received over Phone impr., per campaign and per day. A month's rate is the month's calls over the month's phone impressions. It sits in the Local actions group of the metric picker with Phone impr.; Calls received is in Conversions and on the Overview by default.

Calls received counts every call from your ads and call assets, however short. A goal on calls can count all of them, or only the calls Google counts as conversions, which usually need a minimum length. Keep the two apart when you read PTR against a calls goal.

The call details report template puts Calls received and Phone-through rate in its Key figures. A table then lists each call Google logged: when, how long, the area code, the call type, answered or missed. Google's API gives no caller number and no recording, so neither does Optizads.

• Showing a number at hours when nobody answers, then reading the low PTR as weak demand.
• Comparing PTR across devices as one figure, when a call is far easier on a phone.
• Reading PTR with call reporting off, so calls dialled from a computer are not counted.
• Taking every call as a lead: a phone call counts however short it is.

• Call asset: A phone number shown with the ad, which people can tap to call without visiting the site.
• Ad schedule: The days and hours a campaign may show.
• Conversion action: One definition of a conversion in Google Ads, with its source, its counting, its value and its window.

• Interaction rate: Interaction rate is how often people interact with your ad once it is shown: interactions divided by impressions.
• Store visits: Store visits are Google's modelled estimate of the visits to your physical stores that followed a click on, or a view of, your ads.
• Top and absolute top impression share: Search top impression share is the share of the top-ad impressions your ads could have won that they did win.