Google, who launching the second update in a week on how phone numbers display in ads, has started alerting some advertisers that call extensions will start generating automatically s of February 6, 2017.
The notice started going out on Monday evening, and was emailed to advertisers that used “landing pages prominently featuring a phone number.” Check out a copy of the full email is below.
Although it doesn’t really pop out at you based on what’s in the email, call extensions are already set up with the phone number on the landing pages used in this specific account. It appears that the change wouldn’t affect much for the account, even if it seems as if impression volume for call extensions generally will likely go up on February 6.
There are situations though where advertisers won’t want to pay for calls that are directed to the phone number listed on their landing page. In this case, they’ll have to opt out of all automated extensions in order to keep automated calls from showing after February 6. If you’re one of the advertisers wanting to opt out, check the “Do not use specific automated extensions for this account” option available at the bottom of the Automated extensions report from the Ad extensions tab in AdWords.
Google began notifying advertisers last week that, as of January 19, it may show location-specific phone numbers when location extensions display, even if a different number is used in call extensions.