If most of your customers walk in without booking, your ad platform can't tell you whether a bigger budget brought more of them. It can only show more clicks. So give the ad a job you can count: add a headline that asks people to call to book or order, count the calls for 10 days, then raise the budget and count again.
If calls rise with the budget, the extra spend is reaching people who want to come in. If only clicks rise, you've bought clicks.
A restaurant that couldn't see its customers
On a mentoring call, the owner of a London restaurant was running two Google Smart campaigns and wanted to raise the budget, but only if it brought more people through the door. That was the problem: by the owner's estimate, 60 to 70% of customers just walked in. Some said they'd seen the restaurant on Google or social media, but most didn't book or call ahead, so nothing tied a visit to an ad.
The phone wasn't much help either. The restaurant got about 10 calls a day, mostly regulars with the number saved, while the ads showed 9 calls in 30 days. The site's own visitor numbers also sat well below the ad clicks, a separate tracking gap we told the owner to raise with Google and with the website platform's support.
Our suggestion was a call experiment. Create a new ad, almost the same as the current one, with one or two headlines like "Call now to book a table" or "Call to pre-order". Orders took 10 to 15 minutes to prepare, so calling ahead could save a customer the wait. Run it for 10 days at the current budget and count the calls. Then raise the budget slightly and count again, and ask callers where they found you.
How Smart campaigns count those calls
- Forwarding numbers. Google forwarding numbers are mandatory for new Smart campaigns with a linked phone number in every country where they're available, and the UK is on that list. Calls then show as reported calls in the dashboard.
- You'll hear it. When a call from your ad connects, you hear "Google Ads customer call", so you know which callers the ad sent. Google also shows the call's duration and, in most cases, the caller's area code.
- Maps isn't included. Reported calls don't work with ads on Google Maps, where your business number stays the same.
- No forwarding number? Where forwarding numbers aren't available, you see call clicks: taps on the Call button in mobile ads, not calls made after visiting your website.
To set it up, open the "Ad text, images & landing page" card, click Edit, and on the Business info tab check Show a call button in your ad. A Smart campaign ad takes 3 to 15 headlines of up to 30 characters, which leaves room for a call line. Smart campaigns also test alternate ads built from your business details and website, so the call headline won't show every time. Compare periods, not individual ads.
Keep the test clean
The owner had a second idea: double the budget for 10 days and watch footfall. Our advice was to raise it by about half across both campaigns instead, and to run it in normal weeks, not the holiday week at the end of July, when people have free time and walk-ins rise on their own. If footfall alone didn't give a clear answer, the call test would.
Calls aren't a perfect stand-in for walk-ins. They're a number that moves with the ads and that you can check against your own phone. For calls placed from your website rather than the ad, see why a call from your ad isn't a call from your website.
The takeaways
- With no booking flow, clicks can't prove a budget increase worked. Give the ad a countable action.
- Add one or two call-to-book or call-to-order headlines and turn on the call button.
- Count calls for 10 days at the current budget, then raise it modestly and count again.
- Smart campaigns announce calls from your ad as "Google Ads customer call". Maps calls aren't included.
- Avoid holiday weeks, and ask every caller where they found you.
Common questions
How do I measure Google Ads results for a walk-in business?
Give the ad an action you can count. Add a headline that asks people to call to book or order, make sure the call button is on, and count calls from the ad for a fixed period. Then change one thing, such as the budget, for the same length of time and count again.
How do Smart campaigns track phone calls?
Google forwarding numbers are mandatory for new Smart campaigns with a linked phone number in all countries where they're available, and calls then appear as reported calls in the Smart campaign dashboard. In countries without forwarding numbers, you see call clicks instead: taps on the Call button in mobile ads, not calls that came through your website.
How do I know a call came from my Google ad?
With reported calls in a Smart campaign, you hear a "Google Ads customer call" message when a call from your ad connects. Google also shows call duration, the country of the caller's number and, in most cases, the area code. Reported calls don't work with ads on Google Maps, where your business number doesn't change.
How many headlines can a Smart campaign ad have?
Google says you can write between 3 and 15 headlines of up to 30 characters each, and between 2 and 4 descriptions of up to 90 characters. Smart campaigns also create and test alternate ads from your business information and website, so a call headline won't show in every impression.
How long should a budget test for a local business run?
On the call we suggested counting calls for 10 days at the current budget, then raising it slightly and counting again. For a footfall test, we suggested raising the budget by about half rather than doubling it, for a week to 10 days in normal weeks, since holiday periods bring extra walk-ins of their own.