Tap-to-Call Clicks as a Goal

The enquiry the reports never see

For a repair shop, a plumber or a clinic, most new customers make contact the same way: they find the site on a phone and tap the number.

Analytics records the visit but not the tap, because tapping a phone link loads no new page. The number goes to the phone's dialler and the website is left behind.

So the reports show visits that end without a form or another page, and the business concludes the site does little.

The calls were there all along. Nothing was counting them.

How a phone link works

A number becomes tappable when it is written as a link starting with tel: followed by the number, ideally with the country code, such as +1 and then all ten digits.

Phones open the dialler with the number filled in. On a desktop, the same link may open a calling app, or nothing at all.

A number inside an image cannot be tapped. Some phones turn a plain-text number into a link on their own, but those taps cannot be tracked, so make every number a proper link first.

What to record

• Every phone link, in the header, the footer and the page text.
• Which link was tapped, so the header button and body text can be compared.
• The page it happened on, recorded automatically with the event.
• The device, since clicks on a desktop mean something different.
• Text message links, if you offer them, as a separate event.

The second is the one most setups skip. One label for every tap tells you calls are happening; separate labels show whether people use the button at the top or the number beside the service they were reading about.

Setting up the event

The usual route is Google Tag Manager, which many sites already have installed and most can add in an afternoon.

In Tag Manager, a trigger fires on clicks on any link whose address starts with tel:. It sends Universal Analytics an event: category Contact, action Phone tap, and a label saying which link it was.

Without Tag Manager, a developer can add the event to each phone link in the code, though every link added later must be remembered.

Either way, check it in the Real-Time report: tap the number on your own phone and watch the event arrive within seconds.

Turning it into a goal

Events have their own reports. Goals connect them to everything else: where visitors came from, which page they landed on, what device they used.

AdWords can count taps from people who arrived through an ad. A goal in Analytics counts them from every source, which is the point.

In Admin, under the view's Goals, create a goal of the Event type and match the category and action you chose.

A goal counts once per visit, even if someone taps the number three times. That is usually what you want, and the events report still shows every tap.

Leave the goal value empty unless you know what a call is worth on average. An invented value makes every report look more precise than it is.

A worked example

A small engine repair shop on the edge of town fixes lawnmowers, trimmers, chainsaws and snowblowers, and gets busiest from April, when mowers come out of the shed.

Nearly every customer phones first: do you fix this brand, how long is the wait, can you pick it up.

Analytics showed steady visits and almost no form submissions, and the owner had decided the website was decoration.

The phone links went into Tag Manager in an afternoon, labelled separately for the header button and each service page, with a goal on top.

A month later the picture was clearer. Taps came mostly from phones, mostly before noon, and mostly from the lawnmower repair page, which visitors reached from search.

Nothing on the site had changed except what was being counted. The shop moved its tune-up prices nearer the top of that page, and kept a tally by the phone to compare against.

What the number can tell you

Which pages lead to calls, and so which pages are doing the selling.

Which sources bring callers: search, ads, referrals, and the website link on your Google listing if it carries campaign tags of its own.

When people call, by hour and day, which matters for who answers the phone.

And whether a change helps. Move the number or rewrite a page, then watch whether taps per visit move over the following months.

What it cannot tell you

A tap is an attempt, not a call. The visitor may hang up before it rings, reach voicemail or change their mind.

It cannot see people who read the number and dial it by hand, or who call from a desk phone after reading the site on a computer.

Calls from the button on your Google listing happen on Google, not your site, and show in the listing's Insights instead. Calls from AdWords call extensions are reported in AdWords.

And it says nothing about whether the call became a job. Only the person answering knows that.

Reading it beside the phone

The figure is most useful next to a simple record kept at the phone: for two weeks, note each new caller and how they found you.

If taps and new callers move together, the tracking is telling a true story. If they do not, something is missing on one side.

Filter out your own office's internet address in the view settings, so staff testing the number are not counted, and look at desktop clicks separately, since some are accidental.

The counter-case

A business that gets most enquiries by form or online booking already has its main measure, and phone taps are a secondary figure.

A site with very little traffic will produce numbers too small to read anything into for months. The tally sheet tells you more in the meantime.

And a business that needs to know which calls became jobs, by source, needs call tracking with separate numbers, which is a larger project.

For most local businesses that live on the phone, tracking the tap is still the cheapest way to see what the site is doing.

Counting the taps

1. Make every phone number a tappable link.
2. Add a Tag Manager trigger for tel: links.
3. Label header and page links separately.
4. Test it in the Real-Time report.
5. Create an event goal in Admin.
6. Filter out your own office.
7. Keep a tally at the phone for two weeks.

Step seven makes the number trustworthy. A month of goals on its own is a figure; the same month beside a tally of real callers is evidence.

Visits from flyers and vehicles need labels of their own as well, covered in campaign links on printed materials.

Frequently asked questions

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