There are businesses where the contact form is a fallback and the call is the product: emergency work, clinics, repairs, local services. For those businesses call-only ads were the ideal format: the user searches on mobile, taps the ad, the call starts. No page, no friction, no form.
Google is retiring that format, in two steps.
- February 2026 All options to create new call-only ads are removed.
- February 2027 Existing call-only ads stop receiving impressions.
The year between the two dates is the working window. Use it and you reach February 2027 with a tested system; ignore it and you lose call volume overnight.
What actually changes
The stated path is to move to responsive search ads with call assets. On paper it is a simple substitution. In practice it changes the user experience in a way worth understanding.
| Call-only ad | RSA with call asset | |
|---|---|---|
| Primary action | Call only | Site visit, with calling as an alternative |
| Click destination | The dialler | Landing page, or a call if the user taps the asset |
| Copy | Optimised for the call | Composed dynamically from assets |
| Role of the site | None | Decisive for the share of traffic landing on it |
| Measurement | Calls from ads | Calls from ads plus on-site conversions |
The risk to anticipate. With an RSA, some users who would previously have dialled straight from the ad will land on your site instead. If that page is not built to produce a call — number visible without scrolling, tappable on mobile, hours stated clearly, no form in the way — the migration will mean fewer calls at the same spend. The real work is not in the campaign, it is on the page.
How to migrate, in four steps
1. Capture the baseline, now
Before changing anything, lock down current numbers: calls per campaign, cost per call, average duration, share of useful calls. Without that snapshot you cannot say whether the migration worked — and with a format that will disappear anyway, you do not get a second chance to measure it.
2. Prepare the page before the campaign
- Phone number in the first screen, no scrolling, as a tappable link on mobile.
- Explicit opening hours, and what happens outside them.
- One line saying what happens when they call: who answers, how long it takes, whether the first conversation is free.
- No form competing with the call above the fold.
- Load time under control: on urgent mobile searches every second counts.
3. Build the RSAs around the call
Text assets should be written for someone who wants to speak to a person now: availability, response times, coverage area, no waiting. Configure the call asset with an hours schedule that matches when someone genuinely answers — showing the call option when nobody picks up is the fastest way to burn budget and reputation together.
4. Do not switch the call-only ads off immediately
While they still serve, run them in parallel. Compare the two systems across the same weekdays and the same hours. You have until February 2027, and there is no advantage in closing early before you have verified the new set-up holds.
Measurement, which is where most value leaks
Counting calls is not enough. In a business that lives on the phone, the question that matters is how many of those calls became work — and Google does not have that unless you give it.
Where volume justifies it, three levels in order of robustness:
- Call conversions with a duration threshold: filters out contacts too short to be useful.
- Call tracking with dynamic numbers, to attribute the call to campaign and keyword.
- Call outcome sent back to Google Ads as an offline conversion: the same logic described in the value loop guide, applied to the phone rather than the form.
The third level is the one that changes results. A business that sends Google only "call received" will buy calls; one that sends "call became a job" will buy jobs.
What to calendar
- Now: capture the baseline for calls, cost per call and quality.
- Within three months: a landing page optimised for calling, live and tested on mobile.
- Then: RSAs with call assets running in parallel with the call-only ads that still serve.
- By December 2026: comparison closed, decision made, new system carrying the volume.
- February 2027: call-only stops serving. By then it should be a non-event.
If your business depends on calls and you have not started the transition, the free audit includes a review of the page and of call tracking. See also our lead generation services and how we work.