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Google Ads & WhatConverts – Consistent wrong number calls
Posted by on September 4, 2025 at 9:48 amI was running Google Ads (Search ads only) with call reporting and forwarding switched on for a few months, with WhatConverts setup for call tracking. Everything worked fine in terms of call tracking, however, nearly every call we were getting for our client was a wrong number.
The calls are usually for another type of business like a vet, or restaurant, or another business in the same industry as our client but with a different name. After doing some research we found that Google call forwarding was the most likely culprit, and so a few weeks ago we switched it off, and left WhatConverts to track the calls.
The keywords attributed to some of these calls were quite broad but they did include keywords we were targetting. So for example, we were paying for "assisted living" for a particular location within a 5 mile radius, yet when a phone call came off the back of that keyword, it was for a restaurant, or someone looking for Joanne at a different company in the same industry?? Other calls were for the exact match of the business name and location, but the caller was asking for something else.
The problem we have now is 2-3 weeks later, we're still getting wrong number phone calls. My question is, after switching off Google call forwarding, why would we still be getting wrong number phone calls? When switching the feature off, is it immediate, or does it taper off after a period of time?
To paint a picture, in 3 months of running this campaign 1 call out of 200 was a tangible and quotable lead. Also all conversions via landing page enquiry forms were fine and working as expected, and attributed to keywords we were targetting and paying for.
Recent update* we changed the WhatConverts phone numbers a week ago, and we're still getting wrong number phone calls.
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1 Reply
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If these calls are coming from a call asset rather than a landing page it’s probably not a technical issue with forwarding numbers but the way Google matches businesses to searches.
Someone searching for a competitor business by name often sees an ad for a different business in the same industry. (More on this here if you’re interested: [https://pete-bowen.com/help-im-getting-calls-for-competitors-from-my-google-ads](https://pete-bowen.com/help-im-getting-calls-for-competitors-from-my-google-ads) )
It’s worth measuring the value you get from call assets to see if they’re worth running. For many of my smaller budget clients the wrong numbers make it not worth doing.
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I would refresh your number pool, removing any of the numbers where you are getting calls for other businesses. It’s likely that an old WhatConverts client hard coded those onto their website.
We’ve seen this sometimes with CallRail… once you identify the specific inbound numbers and remove them the problem is usually resolved.
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