The 2025 Guide to PPC Call Tracking for Pay Per Call Campaigns

If you’re running pay per call marketing campaigns, tracking every lead is crucial for your performance. In this article, you’ll learn all about PPC call tracking using the right tools. 

We’ll walk you through how PPC call tracking works step-by-step, the differences between ad tracking and call tracking, and how to combine platforms like Ringba and ClickFlare to get full visibility from click to call.

What Is Pay Per Call Marketing?

Pay per call marketing is a performance-based advertising model where marketers are paid when they generate a qualified phone call. Usually, the advertiser sets specific criteria to determine what counts as a qualified call.  

Instead of driving users to a website, like in traditional lead generation models, the goal here is to connect potential clients directly via phone. 

Pay per call campaigns have gotten traction over the years because they are profitable for both the advertiser and performance marketer. These offers tend to have higher payouts compared to standard lead gen campaigns. This is because qualified calls are considered high-quality leads. They convert faster and have higher conversion rates (30-50% CR compared to 1-2% for clicks), and they allow advertisers to have better quality control and less fraud for the leads they’re buying. 

These factors have caused many premium industries to prioritize pay per call marketing, including verticals such as insurance, financial services, home improvement, healthcare, legal services, and more. 

To learn more about how you can get started, read our pay per call marketing complete guide. 

The Importance of PPC Call Tracking 

An important part of running successful pay per call marketing campaigns is tracking your performance to find out which specific ads, campaigns, keywords, or ad networks are generating more revenue. 

Without proper PPC call tracking, it would be impossible to spot these winning patterns. That means wasted spend and making optimization decisions without real data. 

When you track pay per call marketing campaigns, you can gain insights such as how long calls lasted, whether they met the advertiser criteria, and pinpoint specifically which ad or landing page brought the caller in. Since payouts are directly tied to call quality in this industry, having this data is a necessity. 

So, what exactly do you need to track?

Call vs Ad Tracking: What PPC Call Tracking Software Can Do

Call Tracking 

The first type of tracking centers around the calls. You need to be able to track details such as the duration, outcome and location of the call. This is where call tracking for pay per call campaigns comes in. It allows you to track all this data about your caller. 

To manage this properly, you can use pay per call tracking software like Ringba. These tools record call metadata and ensure that only qualified calls are counted toward your conversions. 

Ad Tracking

On the other hand, you have ad tracking. You need to be able to see which ads, keywords, campaigns, landing pages, or traffic sources were responsible for your leads. Ad tracking software like ClickFlare helps you with this process. ClickFlare has direct integrations with top ad platforms and with Ringba, so it can provide you a full-funnel performance view including data like cost, revenue, and ROI. 

Why Use ClickFlare with Ringba for PPC Call Tracking

As explained above, Ringba is responsible for call tracking for marketing campaigns, while ClickFlare focuses on the ad tracking and attribution part. 

ClickFlare connects directly with top ad networks as well as Ringba via API. That means that on the one hand you have detailed performance data such as cost, clicks, performance by ad, ad set and more. On the other hand, you have the ability to pull real-time call tracking data for PPC from Ringba, such as conversion and payout (revenue). 

By having both call and ad data in one platform, you can make smart decisions based on complete data. 

You can also use ClickFlare to split-test different landers within the same campaign, report custom events (such as button click, phone call click, etc) and see where your users drop off in the funnel. 

What sets ClickFlare apart from other trackers is its built-in Tag Manager feature. This feature allows you to inject the Ringba Number Pool script conditionally, dynamically inject different Ringba campaign scripts on the same landing page, all without having to change the page code manually.

Step-by-step Guide to PPC Call Tracking  

Let’s start with a step-by-step tracking guide on how to connect Ringba to ClickFlare in the most common scenario. In this scenario, the user clicks on an ad on Facebook, TikTok, Taboola etc, and is redirected to your landing page. 

Step 1: Add Ringba Number Pool Script 

First, you need to add the Number Pool script directly to your landing page, in the <head> section, so that each user sees a unique number. This is needed for accurate call attribution. 

If you have not done this step yet, check out Ringba’s guide on how to set up number pools for PPC call tracking. 

Step 2: Create the Custom Conversions 

With ClickFlare, you can track custom conversions. We recommend tracking these 3 events from Ringba: 

• Initiated Call: The call was answered from the call-center. 
• Converted Call: The call converted. The conversion depends on the conditions you set on Ringba. For example, your target might consider it a conversion every time a call lasts more than 2 minutes. 
• Quality Call: It’s important to keep track of quality calls. For example, if a call lasts more than 10 or 30 mins, it’s more likely that call ends up with a sale.

If you wish to track more events (such as 10 second calls, 2 minute calls, etc) you can add these conversions in the same way. 

Let’s create these events on ClickFlare: 

1. Click on Settings and then Custom Conversions from the left-side menu; 
2. Click on Add; 
3. Create the three events we explained above: 

It’s important to track these events not only to understand user behavior and optimize your campaigns, but also to send this data back to your traffic sources. Ad networks like Facebook, Google, and TikTok use this information to build better audiences and improve campaign targeting. This way, the platform doesn’t just know that a user made a call, it knows the call lasted 30 minutes, for example. These behaviors are then prioritized by the ad network’s algorithm to help you reach more users who are likely to convert. 

Step 3: Create Conversion API Integration 

With ClickFlare, you can send all these custom events from Ringba directly to your ad network such as Meta or Google, to optimize your ads. 

1. Go to Settings and on the left menu click on Integrations. In the Conversion API Integrations section, click on the Add Integration button; 
2. Select a Workspace (you can keep it Public for the entire team or assign it to a specific media buyer or project); 
3. Name your integration; 
4. Click on the New Pixel button. If you are using Facebook or TikTok, you need to input your pixel name, pixel ID, and Access Token. For Google or Bing, you just need to sign in with your account; 
5. Under Action Source, select the source that generates events. In most cases, it’s Website; 

Under Event Type Mapping, you can map out the three events we created earlier. Here is an example of how you can map them:

7. The Event Filter feature is optional. You can use this if you want to not send specific events, for example events coming from outside the US. 

Step 4: Create Cost Integration 

Next, you need to integrate your cost accounts. ClickFlare has direct cost integrations with various ad platforms including Meta, TikTok, Google, Bing, Snapchat, Outbrain, Taboola, NewsBreak, and other native platforms. 

You only create this integration once, and ClickFlare will continuously pull cost data across all campaign levels on autopilot. 

1. Go to Settings and click on Integrations; 
2. Under Cost Tracking Integrations, click on Add Integration; 
3. After assigning the Workspace and giving your integration a Name, you simply need to log into your account and select the ad accounts you wish to pull cost from. 

Step 5: Create Ringba Integration 

Now, it’s time to create the Ringba integration via API. 

1. Click on Settings, and then Integrations again; 
2. Scroll down to Affiliate Network Integrations; 
3. Select Ringba from the list; 
4. Enter a name and API Key: 

Note: If you are unsure where to find the API Key, you can generate it on Ringba. Simply follow this image and copy the key: 

Step 6: Create the Lander as an Offer 

Next, you have to create your landing page as an offer on ClickFlare. The terminology here gets a bit confusing for marketers running PPC campaigns. In ClickFlare, an “offer” simply refers to the page where the final conversion happens. 

While PPC marketers usually think of this as a “lander,” ClickFlare refers to it as the “offer” because that’s where the conversion happens. So you only need to create the lander in ClickFlare as an offer, even though it’s just the page displaying the call number.

1. On the left-side menu, click on Offers; 
2. Create a new offer; 
3. Assign a Workspace and Name; 
4. You can optionally select Ringba as your Affiliate Network (if you don’t have an affiliate network yet, you can easily create it by clicking on Add Affiliate Network and choosing the Ringba template); 
5. Under Offer URL, add your page link.
6. Append the ClickFlare Click ID at the end of the URL: clickid={cf_click_id}.

Step 7: Create a Traffic Source 

Back inside ClickFlare, you need to do the following steps: 

1. Click on Traffic Sources from the left-side menu; 
2. Find your traffic source by typing it into the search bar (for example, Facebook); 
3. Assign a Workspace and Name to this integration; 
4. Select the correct cost currency. This should be the same cost currency you have on your ad account; 
5. Do not change the Parameters section. This is already pre-filled in by our tracking template. If you wish to add a parameter, you can do so. 
6. At the bottom of the screen, you can select the Conversion API and Cost Integrations we created earlier. 

Step 8: Create a Campaign 

Finally, you need to create your campaign on ClickFlare. Usually one campaign on ClickFlare represents one campaign on your ad network. 

1. From the left-side menu, select Campaigns and click on New; 
2. Select the Workspace and give your campaign a name (it helps to keep the naming convention the same as you have it on your ad network); 
3. Under Traffic Source, choose the one we created in the previous step; 
4. Select the Country and Device Type (if specified); 
5. Choose Not Tracked for the cost model, since it will be pulled automatically through the cost integration; 
6. Set the transition mode to Redirect (unless your ad network is Google or Bing) and click on Next; 

In this next step, you will have to map out the campaign flow (where the user goes after clicking on the ad). In our example, we will send users directly to the offer page. In that case, we should leave the settings as Offers Only. If you have a lander, you need to select Landers & Offers. Leave transition to offer to 302, and select the offer we created.

8. In the final step, you will get your Campaign Tracking URL. You need to use this tracking link on your ad network. 

Step 9: Create a URL Parameter in Ringba 

The final few steps happen inside Ringba: 

1. Go to Integrations and then to URL Parameters;

2. Click on Create URL Parameter; 

3. Name it clickid;

4. Token [tag:User:clickid] will be created.

Step 10: Create a Ringba Tracking Postback 

Next, we need to create postbacks that will be fired by Ringba for the events we created at the very start (initiated call, converted call, and quality call). 

Here is how to do this: 

1. Go to Integrations and then Pixels; 
2. Click on Create Pixel; 
3. Add the ClickFlare postback for each of the three events: 

1. Initiated Call (Incoming Call on Ringba):  https://yourtrackingdomain.com/cf/cv?click_id=[tag:User:clickid]&payout=0&txid=[Call:CallDateTime]&param1=[tag:InboundNumber:Number]&param2=[tag:Geo:ZipCode]&param3=[tag:RequestInfo:LandingPageUrl]&ct=init
2. Converted Call: https://yourtrackingdomain.com/cf/cv?click_id=[tag:User:clickid]&payout=[Call:ConversionAmount]&txid=[Call:CallDateTime]&param1=[tag:InboundNumber:Number]&param2=[tag:Geo:ZipCode]&param3=[tag:RequestInfo:LandingPageUrl]&ct=conv
3. Quality Call (Completed on Ringba): https://yourtrackingdomain.com/cf/cv?click_id=[tag:User:clickid]&payout=0&txid=[Call:CallDateTime]&param1=[tag:InboundNumber:Number]&param2=[tag:Geo:ZipCode]&param3=[tag:RequestInfo:LandingPageUrl]&ct=qual

Alternative PPC Call Tracking Scenario: Redirect Tracking with Delayed Script Injection 

In some cases, you may want to filter out visitors and only show the phone number if they reached a certain step (for example, if they answered a quiz to qualify, like shown below). 

The main reason for doing this is that each time the Ringba script loads, it uses a number from your pool. If it shows a number to every visitor right away, you might run out of available numbers quickly. That can lead to tracking issues within Ringba. By delaying the script, you save available numbers for users who are more likely to call.

The majority of the setup is the same, but in this case you will need to delay the script injection using ClickFlare’s Tag Manager. 

1. Go to Tag Manager; 
2. Create a new container and click on Triggers;
3. Set a trigger for the script delay (for example, if the visitor clicks on any of the buttons in Question 2);

4. Use the pre-made “Inject Ringba Script” tag and add your Ringba Campaign ID.