Turning Phone Numbers into Trackable URLs, Using Google Tag Manager V2

Have a business and always dreamed of figuring out a way to track Phone Call Clicks? Don’t know a lick about coding? The genius team at Google has finally released a way to make your dreams come true…with Google Tag Manager V2!

Google Tag Manager V2 Perks:

- Precise date to backtrack call data

- No retagging when switching from V1 to V2

- Migrates containers from V1 to V2

- Optimizes and Standardizes tags

- Fixes phone call conversion tracking problems that Google Analytics lacks

- Allows insertion of tags WITHOUT needing coding

- New interface allows for easier tag management

- More third-party tag templates

- New category of variables called built-in variables

- No more auto event listeners tags

- Step-by-step tag management

- Communication with Google Analytics

Perhaps the key feature that businesses are going to want to know how to use is Tracking Phone Call Clicks. So here’s a step-by-step guide to turning your business' phone number into a trackable URL:

1) Enable Pageview tracking

2) Select “Universal”

3) Select “All Pages”

4) Enter tracking ID

5) Track Pageview

6) Generate View: UA Pageview

7) Check Phone Call Clicks in Summary

Tracking Phone Calls:

1) Select “Create Tag”

2) Choose your tag: Google Analytics

3) Choose your tag type: Universal Analytics

4) What triggers this tag to fire: Click

5) Track “events” that come off of a “click”

6) Create a New Trigger:

Event=Clicks

Some Clicks

Click URL: Contains: tel:

Name the Trigger

7) Track Type: Event

8) Category: Click-to-Call

9) Action: {Click text}

10) Label: {Click URL}

11) Create Tag / Preview / Refresh

12) Go to Analytics: Real Time: Events: Click to Call shows results

Using these steps, Google Tag Manager V2 gives users the ability to live report phone call conversions and view phone call conversion codes in Google Analytics. 

Unfortunately, V2 is not yet available for merging your current containers; however, you can visit Tagmanager.google.com to create new containers and check out the user-friendly interface, in order to prepare for the official V2 release this year. And of course, if your business needs help with SEO tools, Tandem can always help ;)