Google Ads is evolving how the success of your call campaigns is measured. Moving beyond simple metrics like call duration, you can use advanced AI to help identify and optimize for the leads that truly matter to your business.
This article explains how AI-qualified call leads work and how they might benefit your business.
On this page
- Benefits
- Understanding AI-qualified call leads
- How classification works
- Call recording default settings
- Update call signals or turn off call recording
Benefits
- Higher lead quality: To enhance the conversion reporting accuracy, we’ve implemented filters to remove non-qualified interactions such as robocalls, spam calls, and misdials that previously met the call duration threshold.
- Smarter bidding: By feeding higher-quality conversion data into Smart Bidding, Google Ads can optimize your spend to find more customers who are likely to convert.
- Transparency: Review call recordings directly within your reports to see how the AI classified each interaction. Your Call Details reports will now feature a concise AI-generated summary of the call and specific hashtags (for example, “#HighIntent,” “#ConsultationScheduled”) to help you understand customer needs at a glance.
Understanding AI-qualified call leads
Historically, Google Ads primarily classified a "conversion" based on call duration. However, duration alone doesn't always reflect lead quality. In some instances, for example, a long call could still be a wrong number or a robocall.
AI-qualified call leads use Google AI to evaluate call recordings (the call recording setting must be turned on) to determine the actual quality of the conversation. The system looks for signals of intent, such as a customer inquiring about specific services, scheduling a consultation, or showing readiness to purchase.
How classification works
The system uses a tiered approach to help ensure you never miss a conversion signal:
- Primary signal (call recording): If call recording is on, all calls will be recorded and evaluated by AI. Only qualified calls will count as conversions.
- Secondary signal (call duration): If a call can't be recorded, it will count as a conversion if it lasts a certain duration. To update the call duration threshold, follow these instructions.
- Tertiary signal (ad interaction): In the rare event a Google forwarding number isn’t available, conversions will be classified based on ad interaction data.
Call recording default settings
Call recording is turned on by default
To immediately provide you with enhanced insights and AI-qualified call leads, call recording is now turned on by default.
Exceptions
Call recording will remain turned off if you previously turned it off, or if your business was identified as operating in healthcare or financial services. If you fall into these categories, you can manually enable call recording at any time to benefit from AI-qualified call leads.
Keep in mind
- Regional availability: Call recording is currently only available when both the dialing and receiving phone numbers are located in the United States or Canada.
- Terms: Use of the call recording feature is governed by the Call Ads Supplemental Terms.
- Data usage: Recordings are used to evaluate lead quality, monitor spam and fraud, and improve the accuracy of your conversion reporting.
- How to turn off call recording: You can turn off call recording at any time by following these instructions.
Update call signals or turn off call recording
To update your call duration threshold or to turn off call recording, follow the steps below.
Update your call duration threshold
- Go to Summary within the Goals menu
.
- Open the “Phone call leads” drop-down and search for “AI-qualified call leads”.
- Select Edit, then open the “Lead qualification” drop-down.
- Enter the minimum length in seconds.
- Select Done.
Turn off call recording
- Go to Account settings within the Admin menu
.
- Open the “Call ads” drop-down.
- Under “Call recording”, select Off.
- Select Save.
