How To Track Telephone Link Clicks in Google Analytics

There are a lot of guides online on how to set up conversions in GA4 and Google Tag Manager, many of them confusing to those who aren’t already familiar with the newer generation of Google products.

In this guide, we’ll show you how to set up tracking for telephone link clicks in GA4 using the most simplistic approach possible.

To avoid additional complications, this guide does not show you how to test/preview the goal.

However, this is a very straight forward conversion event to set up and there are no circumstances where this goal won’t work.

Therefore we don’t need to preview/test that the goal is working.

First off, we’ll need two things:

1. A Google Tag Manager (GTM) account
2. A Google Analytics (GA4) account

Both of these are free, quick and easy to set up.

Then, you’ll need to do two things:

1. Install the GTM code on your website (instructions post to come)
2. Link GA4 to GTM (instructions post to come)

With all of the above completed, we can begin:

Instructions

Step 1: Go to the Trigger section in GTM and click “New”.

Step 2: We need to name our trigger, so let’s call it something like “Tel Link Clicks”. What you name this tag doesn’t impact tracking so name it whatever you prefer.

Step 3: Click on the white box that asks you to choose a trigger type.

Step 4: A new menu will appear on the right hand side. Let’s click “Just Links”.

Step 5: We need to select “Some Link Clicks”.

Step 6: By default on a new account, your first condition will be “Page Hostname”. We need to change it to Click URL, which doesn’t appear in the drop down menu, so let’s add it in. Click on “Choose Built-In Variable” from the dropdown box.

Step 7: A menu will appear on the right hand side. Click on “Click URL”.

Step 8: In the third conditions box, add in “tel:”. By doing this, you will track all telephone number links that are clicked on. Then click the “Save” button on the top right of your screen.

Step 9: Great, your trigger is set up. Now let’s go over to “Tags” area through the menu on the left hand side of your screen.

Step 10: Click on the “New” button.

Step 11: Just like before, input a name (eg. Tel Link Clicks) and click on the first white box.

Step 12: A menu will appear on the right hand side. Select “Google Analytics: GA4 Event”.

Step 13: On the “Configuration Tab” drop-down box, click on your linked GA4 configuration.

If you haven’t linked GA4 yet, you can follow this guide here: [LINK TO COME]

If you’re just linking GA4 now, stop what you’re doing, set up the GA4 configuration and then return to Step 10.

Step 14: Populate an “Event Name” such as “tel_link_clicks”.

Step 15: Now, whilst we’re finishing this Tag off, we need to open GA4.

Go to the Admin menu (the little blue cog in the bottom left), then Click on “Conversions”, then “New conversion event”.

Step 16: Once you’ve clicked on “New conversion event”, you will be asked to enter “New event name”.

This name must match the name “Event Name” that you entered in our GTM Tag back at Step 14.

If these names do not match exactly, the information will not get pushed from GTM to GA4 and the conversion tracking will not work.

Enter the event name and hit “Save”.

Step 17: Great! You’ve set up the new conversion event in GA4. But it won’t work just yet.

Now we have to return to Google Tag Manager (GTM) to finish off the tag.

Step 18: Back in GTM, we’re going to finish setting up the Tag that we started back at Step 14.

Click on the bottom white box to select what will trigger this Tag.

Step 19: A menu will appear from the right.

Select the “Tel Link Clicks” Trigger (if you named the Trigger differently back in Step 2, it will appear under that name).

Step 20: This is how your completed Tag Configuration should look.

Now hit the “Save” button.

Step 21:  Congrats! You’ve set up the tag!

Now all that’s left to do is hit “Publish” on the top right hand corner.