Getting phone orders into Google Ads for a distributor on Linnworks

No real distributor was involved in this one: it’s a hypothetical example of what we’d build. To count phone orders in Google Ads, each order in Linnworks has to be tied back to an ad click or to a customer’s hashed email or phone number, then sent across with its real value.

The gap between the sales desk and the ad account

Imagine a UK distributor of trade supplies. Buyers find it through Google Ads and browse the catalogue, then pick up the phone because they want to check stock, confirm a trade price or talk to someone who knows the range. The sales desk keys those orders into Linnworks, where they sit alongside the web orders.

Google Ads sees the web orders and nothing else. As far as Smart Bidding knows, the customer who rang and placed the largest order of the week never existed, so the campaigns that brought in those callers look worse than they are.

Can phone orders be tracked in Google Ads?

Yes, as long as there’s something to match them on. A phone order has no tag firing on a thank-you page, so the link has to come from data gathered earlier: a click identifier saved when the customer used the website, or a hashed email address or phone number Google can recognise. Some orders will never match, and an honest plan accepts that from the start.

What we’d build

On the website. After a Tracking Audit, click identifiers would be captured where consent allows and saved with trade account logins, quote requests and callback forms, so the details are waiting when the phone rings.

At the sales desk. One small change of habit: confirming the buyer’s email address and phone number on every phone order, in the fields Linnworks already has for them.

In the middle. A small integration reads new orders from the Linnworks API, picks out those taken by phone, hashes the customer details and sends each order’s real value to Google Ads through the Data Manager API. Phone orders get a conversion action of their own while web orders stay with the website tag, which stops one sale being counted by both routes. Cancellations and refunds can be sent as conversion adjustments, so the value doesn’t stand once the money has gone back.

Google announced on 4 November 2026 that the Data Manager API now supports Google Ads call conversions and row-level diagnostics. We’d look at both here: call conversions if the distributor uses Google’s call tracking, and row-level results so a rejected upload can be traced to the order that caused it.

One order, from phone to platform

1. A buyer clicks an ad and requests a quote on the website. Their click details are saved against the quote.
2. They ring the next morning and place the order with the sales desk.
3. The order lands in Linnworks with their email and phone number.
4. The integration matches it and sends it to Google Ads with the order’s actual value.
5. If the order is part-refunded later, an adjustment can follow.
6. Anything that doesn’t match is logged with the reason, so the sales desk can see where details are going missing.

What could get in the way

Matching depends on the quality of the customer records, so a shared “accounts@” inbox or a missing phone number will cost some matches. Trade prices, credit notes and carriage also need a clear rule for what counts as the order’s value. We’d settle both while scoping, before quoting.

Where this fits

This is our ERP order values service, using the Linnworks integration. Projects like it start from £2,500 and get a fixed quote once we know the systems involved, as set out on our pricing page. Getting the orders into Linnworks faster is a separate job, and that’s what our sister site Zestcode Automation does.