Measure Your Facebook Campaigns Effectively With Click To Call Tracking.
Tracking phone calls as conversions can be tricky in Facebook Ads. Many of them involve a complex and sophisticated setup on the backend of your business. If you are instead looking for a simple solution to track phone call conversions in your Facebook Business Manager, then this is for you.
In order to implement this form of call tracking, you'll need:
1) A Google Tag Manager Account. If you don't have one, here's some standard documentation to help you get started: https://support.google.com/tagmanager/answer/6103696?hl=en
2) A Facebook Business Manager account with your Facebook Pixel already installed on your website.
3) The Facebook pixel, ideally, is also installed via GTM, not through any direct integration.
4) A website with click-to-call functionality on your contact number
Once this is done, let's start implementing.
#1 - Create A Facebook Custom Event
There are a few options when it comes to what you're going to name your conversion in Facebook Ads.
You can either use one of Facebook's standard events they provide (though they don't have one dedicated to clicks to call), or you can create a custom event.
If you want to use a standard event, such as “Lead” your code will look like this:
<script>
fbq(‘track’, ‘Lead’);
</script>
If you want to use a custom event, such as “Click to Call” your code will look like this:
<script>
fbq(‘trackCustom’,’Click to Call’)
</script>
Note: We've changed the “track” functionality to “trackCustom” and added in what we want to name our event: “Click to Call”
You can name the custom event whatever you like!
#2 - Create a New Google Tag Manager Tag
The next step is to Create a new Tag in Google Tag Manager.
Open up your container and click New Tag.
Once you've done this, in the tag type, select Custom HTML.
Once there, name your event and copy>paste the code you've chosen from Step #1
The only additional step is to ensure that your Facebook Pixel Base code fires before the event fires on your website. This will ensure that your event doesn't fire prematurely on the page.
In order to do this, click on the Tag Sequencing section and click “Fire a tag before [your event] fires…” and select your Facebook Pixel Base Code Tag
Note: the above is only relevant if you've installed your Facebook Pixel via Google Tag Manager as well. If you're using a native integration, you can skip over this.
Finally, we're going to set up our Trigger. This will ensure your Tag fires once the criteria you specify is fulfilled.
In this case, we want to set up our tag when someone clicks on the phone number on our website.
Click on the Trigger section, add Click - All Elements. Select the option Some Clicks where Click URL contains tel:
Once this is completed, simply publish your new tag to your website. You can use Google Tag Manager's Preview Mode if you'd like to test it out.
#3 - Test Your Event in Facebook's Events Manager
After your Tag has been published to your site, hop over to your website in a new tab. Ensure you have your Facebook Pixel Helper Chrome Extension enabled.
Click on your phone number and check to see if your new event has fired. You should be looking for a green checkmark to indicate that it's working.
Note: if you used a standard (not custom) event, you can also use Facebook's Events Manager > Test Events tool to see if your event fires upon clicking on your phone number.
Try both of these to verify correct installation.
#4 - Time To Create Your Custom Conversion
Note, this is only relevant if you've decided to implement a custom event. If you used a standard event like “lead” this is not necessary.
The final step is to turn your custom event into a custom conversion. This will allow you to report on the number of conversions attributed to your ad campaigns in the Facebook Ads Manager section.
To get here, go to the Events Manager section of your Business Manager, on the left hand column, click on Custom Conversions, make sure your Ad Account is selected, and hit Create Custom Conversion in the top right.
Once you're in this interface, select your custom event (in our case, it's Click to Call) from the dropdown menu, give it a name, select the “Lead” category if it's relevant for your business, and leave the value blank.
Note: if your business puts a dollar value on your individual leads, you can put that value into the field. If you leave it blank, it will count as one.
Conclusion
And that's all! You've successfully set up a click to call conversion for your Facebook Ads.
Note: What's important to keep in mind with this conversion is that it fires upon the button click. Meaning that some percentage of people will click on your phone number and not actually successfully complete the phone call. This will still count as a conversion and is a limitation of this method.
I hope that was useful! If you have any questions, shoot me an email at jhana.ellard@gmail.com
Until next time,
Jhana
