Call-Only Ads Are Shutting Down: Migrating to Call Assets Before February 2027
The call-only ads sunset has a hard date, and if call-only ads are still running anywhere in your account, you are on a clock. Google stopped allowing new call-only ads in February 2026, and in February 2027 the existing ones stop serving impressions entirely. The only replacement Google offers is call assets in responsive search ads — the phone number becomes an attachment to a normal RSA instead of an ad format of its own.
The trap is that this is not a toggle. A call-only ad and an RSA with a call asset behave differently in the auction, produce a different mix of clicks, report differently, and train Smart Bidding on different signals. Service businesses that migrate in a single evening routinely see call volume drop for two to three weeks — and roughly half of that drop is self-inflicted.
This guide covers the exact timeline, the mechanical differences that matter, the five mistakes that break a migration, a one-week rollout plan, and a pre-deadline checklist you can run against your own account.
Call-only ads sunset: what is being removed and when
The format being retired is call-only ads — the ad type where the headline is a phone number, the tap starts a call, and the user never reaches your site.
| Date | What happens | Practical meaning |
|---|---|---|
| February 2026 | New call-only ads can no longer be created | Already in force, in the UI and through the API |
| Feb 2026 – Jan 2027 | Existing call-only ads keep serving | Your window for a parallel, measured migration |
| February 2027 | Existing call-only ads stop receiving impressions | Any ad group with no replacement ad goes silent |
Note what is not going away: phone leads from Search. The channel stays; the carrier changes. The number moves from being an ad to being an asset attached to a responsive search ad.
The real risk is not “ads stop showing.” It is that an ad group whose only ad was call-only quietly drops to zero impressions, and the drop reads like falling demand in your reports rather than an administrative sunset.
Finding your call-only ads in five minutes
- Open Ads & assets → Ads at the account level, not inside a single campaign.
- Add the Ad type column and filter for “Call ad” / “Call-only”.
- Export with campaign and ad group, plus clicks, conversions and cost for the last 90 days.
- Flag every ad group where a call-only ad is the only enabled ad. That is your emergency queue — those groups go empty in February 2027.
Call assets vs call-only ads: what actually changes
The difference runs through four layers at once: serving, clicks, conversions, and how the bidding algorithm learns.
| Dimension | Call-only ad | RSA + call asset |
|---|---|---|
| Primary action | Phone call only | Site visit or call — the user chooses |
| Devices | Call-capable devices only | All devices; the asset appears where calling is possible |
| Headlines | Fixed, written by you | Up to 15 headlines, assembled by the system |
| Phone visibility | Guaranteed | Not guaranteed — the asset competes for space |
| Ad click | Equals a call start | Headline click goes to the site; asset click starts a call |
| Landing page | Optional | Required, and it affects quality, policy review and Ad Rank |
| Reporting | Call metrics on the ad | Call metrics in the asset report plus call conversions |
One consequence dominates all the others: a landing page enters the critical path. Previously it was optional or a formality. Now part of your traffic lands there, and page quality starts shaping both conversion rate and eligibility to serve. If the page does not satisfy Google Ads destination requirements, migration produces disapprovals instead of leads.
Why the call asset does not always show
Assets carry no serving guarantee. Google assembles a combination per query, device and position, and call assets appear most often at higher Ad Rank on mobile. With a weak ad you can end up buying traffic with no phone number visible at all — something that could not happen with call-only ads. The selection logic and how to judge each asset’s contribution are covered in our breakdown of ad extensions and assets in Google Ads.
Five mistakes that break the migration
1. Migrating without an asset schedule
Call-only campaigns almost always carried a business-hours schedule — nobody answers at 11:40pm. That detail gets lost in migration, the asset serves around the clock, and you pay for calls into an empty office. Call assets have their own schedule, separate from campaign hours. Set it first.
2. Letting the conversion goal drift
A call-only campaign optimised toward calls above a duration threshold. Add RSAs and web conversions appear: forms, chats, quote requests. If you do not rank them, Smart Bidding drifts toward the cheaper, more frequent action and call volume sags. Fix it with goal hierarchy — the mechanics are in our guide to primary and secondary conversions.
3. Switching off the old ad the day you switch on the new one
The most expensive mistake. A new RSA has to clear review, accumulate data, and let the bid strategy re-forecast. Call volume is unstable through that window. If the old ad is already deleted, you have nothing to roll back to and nothing to compare against. Run both in parallel for at least three to four weeks.
4. Duplicating the number in ad text
A phone number written into a headline or description, on top of the call asset, can get the ad disapproved. It is easy to introduce accidentally by copying old call-only headlines verbatim.
5. Losing the geographic logic
Service businesses often ran separate call-only campaigns per city with local numbers. Consolidating into RSAs mixes those numbers up. If you merge campaigns, re-check location settings — on call traffic the gap between “presence” and “presence or interest” is unusually visible, as covered in our note on Google Ads location targeting.
The one-week rollout plan
Written for a mid-sized account — up to a few dozen ad groups with call ads. For larger accounts, run the same steps in waves of 10–15% of spend.
Day 1 — inventory and account plumbing
- Export every call-only ad with 90 days of performance.
- Write down your baseline: calls, cost per call, share of calls over your duration threshold, average duration, call-to-deal rate from CRM.
- Confirm the business name is filled in at account or campaign level — some formats depend on it.
- Register every phone number you use as a call asset at the right level (account, campaign or ad group).
Day 2 — measurement before you touch traffic
This is the step most teams skip and then cannot explain the dip. Turn on call reporting and verify that conversions exist for:
- Calls from ads — a call started from the asset or ad.
- Calls from a website — a tap on the number on your landing page. This type appears for the first time after migration, because a website was never in the path before.
- Duration threshold — set deliberately. A common starting point for home and local services is 45–60 seconds; complex B2B often needs 90 seconds or more. Treat these as reference points, not rules: derive yours from CRM data.
Call tracking mechanics, forwarding numbers and dynamic number insertion are covered separately in call tracking and call campaigns in Google Ads. If you do not have tracking in place, install it before the migration rather than after.
Day 3 — build the RSA
Do not port call-only headlines word for word. Their job was to sell a call; an RSA headline has to sell both a call and a click. A workable split across 15 headlines:
- 3–4 on the core service plus location;
- 2–3 on the reason to call now (same-day visit, free estimate, answer in five minutes);
- 2–3 on proof (years in business, jobs completed, warranty);
- 2 on price anchoring, if price is an argument;
- 2 pinned to position 1 if you carry mandatory wording;
- the rest as intent variants drawn from your search terms report.
Write four descriptions, and make at least one describe what happens after the call (“we take the details, a technician calls back within ten minutes”). To judge which assets actually pull weight, use the asset report — how to read it is covered in Ad Strength and RSA asset reporting.
Day 4 — launch in parallel
- Add the new RSA to the same ad group as the call-only ad. Do not spin up a separate campaign — the two would compete in the auction and corrupt each other’s data.
- Change nothing else that day: no bids, no budgets, no strategy switch.
- Log the date. When you later investigate a dip, change history is the first place you look.
Days 5–7 — observe, adjust narrowly
| Metric | Where | Warning sign |
|---|---|---|
| Call asset impression share | Asset report | Asset barely serves — weak ad or low Ad Rank |
| Cost per qualified call | Call conversions | More than 25–30% above baseline |
| Share of clicks going to the site | Clicks minus calls | Heavy site traffic converting at zero — landing page problem |
What to change on the landing page
Your site used to be optional in this path. Now it absorbs part of the traffic and largely determines whether the migration pays off. Minimum requirements for the page behind an RSA with a call asset:
- A tappable number above the fold. A real
tel:link, not an image of a number. Without it you cannot record the “calls from website” conversion — half of your new reporting. - Message match. If the ad promises same-day service, that promise belongs in the first screen, not the third paragraph.
- Service area, listed explicitly. For local services this is both a conversion element and a relevance signal during review.
- A price anchor. Not necessarily an exact price — “from”, a range, or a free estimate. No anchor at all measurably suppresses call rate.
- Load speed. Call traffic skews heavily mobile, and a second of first-screen delay shows up directly in conversion rate.
If you have no website at all, a single page is formally enough — but it has to be substantive: one service, the process, contacts, coverage area. A placeholder carrying only a phone number will not clear review.
Separating the two call conversions so they do not fight
After migration you have two call sources: from the asset and from the website. You can report them together, but you cannot manage them together.
| Conversion | Role | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Call from ad (over N sec) | Primary | The successor to your call-only metric; compare it to baseline |
| Call from website (over N sec) | Primary | A new source that did not exist before |
| Form submission | Secondary | Useful, but usually cheaper and lower quality — must not pull optimisation |
| Number click without connection | Observation only | A micro-conversion; keep it out of goals |
Bidding and budget after the switch
The format change reshapes your click mix: volume goes up, average click value goes down, because part of the traffic now goes to the website. Three consequences.
One. If you were on Maximise clicks, that strategy will now buy cheap site clicks. The logical move is Maximise conversions with a primary goal of “call over N seconds” — provided you have enough conversions to learn from. A rough floor is 15–30 conversions per campaign per month; below that, consolidate campaigns or raise the aggregation level.
Two. Leave budgets alone for the first two weeks. The algorithm is already re-forecasting; a simultaneous budget change makes the result unreadable.
Three. Decide in advance what a call is worth to you — not what you used to pay, but what the margin and call-to-deal rate allow. After a format change that number is the only thing that lets you make decisions without guessing.
Related changes worth auditing at the same time
Moving calls into assets is part of a broader pattern: manual objects are replaced by automatic ones, and control migrates to account-level settings. The same pattern shows up in automated promotions in Search and Performance Max, where Google pulls an offer off your landing page and inserts it into the ad on its own. If you are tidying assets anyway, check that setting too — it lives at account level and is easy to miss.
The second change that touches call-driven businesses is the billing shift in Demand Gen with view-through optimisation on Discover, which rewrites the economics of the upper funnel that later produces branded calls.
Pre-February-2027 checklist
- No ad group anywhere has a call-only ad as its only enabled ad.
- Every number in use exists as an approved call asset.
- Asset schedules match real answering hours, including weekends and holidays.
- Call reporting is on; “calls from ads” and “calls from website” conversions both exist.
- The duration threshold comes from CRM data, not from the default.
- Calls are the primary conversion goal; web actions sit as secondary unless they are worth the same money.
- The landing page answers the same query as the ad and shows a tappable number above the fold.
- New RSAs have run in parallel with the old ads for at least three to four weeks.
- Your baseline is written down in a file, not remembered.
- The switch-off date is in a calendar with an owner attached.
If you manage several accounts or client projects, run the migration in waves from a shared asset template — this is the case where account and access structure matters more than speed. How we handle agency accounts and access is described on our Google Ads agency account rental page, and the wider service list is at PPC Rebels services.
FAQ: migrating to call assets
Can I keep call-only ads until the last day?
Technically yes, they serve until February 2027. Practically no: on the switch-off day you would be left without a baseline and without a trained bid strategy. Start at least a quarter before the deadline.
Will call volume drop?
In the first two to four weeks, often yes — commonly 10–30% against baseline while ads clear review and bidding relearns. After that it depends on RSA quality and the landing page. Accounts with a strong site frequently end up with more total leads, but a different lead mix.
Does the call asset always appear?
No. Assets compete for space, and serving depends on Ad Rank, device, position and query. That is the fundamental difference from call-only ads, where the number was guaranteed.
Do I now need a real website?
Yes — an RSA requires a landing page. The minimum viable version is one page with the service description, service area, a price anchor and a tappable number above the fold, meeting Google’s destination policy.
At what level should call assets live?
One number for the whole business: account level. Different numbers per city or service line: campaign level. Use ad group level only when a single campaign genuinely needs different numbers, otherwise scheduling becomes unmanageable.
Should I dismantle my dedicated call campaigns?
Not necessarily. It is usually simpler to keep the structure and add RSAs with call assets to the existing groups. Consolidation is a separate project, done after the format migration has stabilised.
What call duration should count as a conversion?
Reference points: local and home services 45–60 seconds, medical and legal 60–90 seconds, complex B2B 90 seconds and up. The correct method is to export durations from call tracking, match them to qualified leads in CRM and find the point below which junk share spikes.
How do I measure calls without a call tracking platform?
At minimum, enable Google Ads call reporting: it gives you the call event, duration and source, which is enough to configure conversions and Smart Bidding. Full closed-loop attribution needs a separate system, but starting a migration with no reporting at all is not an option.
Does this affect Performance Max?
Not directly — the sunset applies to Search call-only ads. Indirectly yes: account-level call assets are available to other campaign types, and changing your primary conversion goal affects every campaign that uses it.
Can I revert if the new setup performs worse?
No. Creating new call-only ads has been closed since February 2026, so a deleted ad cannot be rebuilt. That is exactly why you keep the old ads enabled until the new combination matches them.
Where do I start with hundreds of ad groups?
Sort by spend. Migrate the groups that produce 80% of calls first, in waves of 10–15% of budget, then clear the long tail with a templated RSA built in bulk through the editor.
February 2027 sounds far away, but the actual work is not writing ads — it is rebuilding measurement and bidding, and that takes several full learning cycles. Start now and you migrate on your own data. Start in January 2027 and you migrate on luck.
