Call-only ads ended in February 2026: what a phone-led business runs instead, and the call that is not counted

Google retired call-only ads in February 2026, so a plumber, a locksmith or a clinic that wants the phone to ring now runs a Search campaign with call assets and lands the click on a page whose first screen carries the number. Two things changed. The page now has to do the work the ad format used to do on its own, and the tap on the ad's own call button, which Google reports as clicks to call, shows in the account as a primary action and is still not counted in the Conversions column that bidding reads. On an account we manage we found both in the same week, and this is the setup that came out of it.

What call-only ads did, and what replaces each part

The page's first screen

On a phone the first screen is about six hundred pixels tall, and for a phone-led business it has one job. The number, as a tap-to-call link, in the first line a thumb can reach. The hours, because a call to a closed business is a wasted click that still cost money. One sentence of proof: the years trading, the review count, the area covered. A short form below for the person who cannot ring this second. Nothing that covers it: a cookie banner that replaces the screen instead of overlaying it hides the number from the very person the ad paid for, and it is the first thing we check on a phone-led account.

Load it on your own phone on mobile data, not office wifi. If the number is not on the screen within two seconds, the campaign is paying for people who leave.

The three kinds of call, and which ones bidding can see

1. Calls from the ad's call button. Google hosts this action and reports it as clicks to call. On the account where we checked it in October 2026, it sat in the contact goal marked primary and the Conversions column still did not include it, and the API refused to make it biddable. It is counted in all conversions, and that is where to report it.
2. Calls from the website, through a tracking number that swaps in for ad visitors. These are counted as conversions when they pass the length you set, and bidding learns from them. This is the action that should carry the weight.
3. Calls from the Business Profile, which the profile reports separately and which Google Ads does not see at all unless the location asset is linked and the call is made from it.

If the only calls the account counts are the ones from the ad button, the Conversions column reads zero for calls, and a Maximize Conversions campaign will optimise towards the forms, which for a phone-led business is the wrong half of the enquiries. Set up the website call action first, then choose a bidding strategy.

The sixty-second rule

A call that lasts eight seconds is a wrong number or a sales call. A call that lasts a minute is usually a customer. Set the website call action to count calls over sixty seconds, and set the call asset's reporting threshold the same way, so the two kinds of call are judged alike. The number of calls falls on the day you do it, and the number of customers does not, which is the point.

Two schedules, not one

The campaign has an ad schedule and the call asset has its own, and a phone-led account needs both set. With the campaign scheduled to the answered hours and the asset left on its default, the number shows beside ads that should not be running; with the asset scheduled and the campaign not, the ad runs at 7pm without a number, and the click lands on a page nobody will answer. Set the two to the same hours, then decide what the after-hours searches deserve. For most trades the answer is nothing: the campaign is off, the searcher finds someone else, and the budget is spent when the phone is picked up. For a business with a booking form that works overnight, a second ad group with form-led copy and no call asset can run in those hours, judged on forms alone and on a budget of its own.

What to expect in the first month

• Fewer, longer calls than a call-only campaign used to produce, because the page filters the people who would have rung from the ad and hung up.
• A device report that is almost all phones. Lower the desktop bid rather than excluding desktops entirely; a person at a desk who reads the page and rings from the phone beside it is still a customer.
• A gap between all conversions and conversions. Report both lines and say what each contains. An owner who is told the account produced twelve calls when the column shows five learns to distrust the column, and the column is the one bidding uses.
• A schedule that matches the answered hours exactly. The commonest waste in a phone-led account is a call at 7pm to a business that closed at 5.

The call-tracking guide beside this one covers the tracking number, the swap and the length threshold in detail. The service page for trades and local services describes how we run a phone-led account month to month, and what we report.