Act Before Feb 2026: Call Only Ads Migration for Small Businesses

Google is retiring call-only ads: February 2026 shuts off new-ad creation, and February 2027 stops delivery entirely. The replacement is responsive search ads with call assets attached, and the migration work needs to start now, not next year. Add call assets to your account, build RSAs that carry them, and run both formats side by side before you touch your budget allocation.

TL;DR:

  • Google will stop allowing new call-only ads by February 2026 and completely remove existing ones from serving in February 2027, with API support ending simultaneously.
  • Advertisers must migrate to responsive search ads with call assets, adding call details at various account levels and testing performance over at least four to six weeks before budget shifts.
  • Call assets support both call actions and website visits, offering greater flexibility, machine learning optimization, and richer lead qualification compared to past call-only ads.
  • Proper migration requires updating landing pages to match ad intent, pinning call-focused headlines, and ensuring call scheduling aligns with business hours to prevent missed opportunities.
  • Most campaign performance dips occur due to jumping into budget changes prematurely or neglecting landing page and tracking adjustments, making thorough testing and setup crucial.

Table of Contents

What Google Announced About Call-Only Ads (And Why the Timeline Matters)

Google’s own help documentation lays out a two-phase sunset. In February 2026, every option to create a new call-only ad disappears from the interface. You can still run existing ones for another year, but the clock is loud. Then in February 2027, those surviving call-only ads stop receiving impressions altogether, full stop, no extensions.

The Google Ads API deprecation notice confirms the same schedule on the developer side: CallAdInfo object creation is already unsupported, and API access for existing call ads gets pulled once the February 2027 date hits. That matters if your agency or in-house team manages campaigns through scripts or bulk tools rather than the dashboard.

Why is Google doing this? The framing in its own guidance points to consolidation: one ad format, RSAs, that can carry call assets, sitelinks, and site-visit intent simultaneously, optimized by machine learning rather than managed as a separate siloed unit. Google explicitly requires advertisers to transition to RSAs with call assets to keep generating phone leads through the platform.

Here’s the risk of waiting: campaigns built entirely on call-only ads with no RSA infrastructure in place will hit a wall with almost no runway to fix it. The advertisers who treat this as a 2027 problem are the ones who’ll scramble in December 2026 trying to rebuild call volume from zero.

  • New call-only ad creation ends February 2026
  • Existing call-only ads stop serving entirely by February 2027
  • API support for call ads is being phased out on the same schedule
  • RSAs with call assets are the only sanctioned replacement

How RSAs With Call Assets Replace the Old Format

Call assets are the mechanism that puts a phone number and a clickable call button on an ad without the ad itself being a single dedicated call unit. You configure them at the account, campaign, or ad group level, depending on how granular you want your business name and phone number to be, and they attach automatically to eligible responsive search ads.

The functional gap between the old and new format is bigger than it looks:

  • Primary action: call-only ads had one job. RSAs with call assets support a call and a site visit from the same impression.
  • Flexibility: call-only ads locked you into fixed headline and description text. RSAs let you submit up to 15 headlines and 4 descriptions, and Google’s system tests combinations.
  • Machine learning: RSAs use that testing to identify which headline and description pairings drive the strongest click-through and conversion rates, a process explained in detail in AI-Driven Search: Transforming Online Visibility Strategies, something a static call-only ad never did.
  • Lead pre-qualification: a searcher who taps through to your landing page before calling arrives with more context than one who dialed cold off an ad. That tends to shorten low-value calls.

That dual-path behavior is the real upside here, not just a compliance checkbox. A prospect comparing three plumbers on their phone might call the one with a call button and click through to check reviews on another. RSAs with call assets let you capture both behaviors under one campaign instead of running separate call-only and search campaigns competing for the same auction.

Your Step-by-Step Migration Checklist

Treat this as a sequence, not a menu. Skipping ahead to “shift the budget” before you’ve validated performance is the single most common way advertisers lose call volume during this transition.

  1. Audit your current call-only campaigns. Export cost per call, call volume, and conversion data for the last 90 days. You need this baseline to know if the new setup is actually working.
  2. Add call assets at the right level. Configure your business name and phone number as call assets, decide whether they apply account-wide or per campaign, and confirm they’re eligible to show on mobile devices.
  3. Build your RSAs. Aim for at least 8 to 10 headlines and 3 to 4 descriptions so Google’s testing has enough material to work with. Pin one or two headlines that explicitly mention calling (“Call Now for a Free Quote”) so the call intent doesn’t get buried under generic copy.
  4. Create or update a mobile-first landing page. Callers who click through first should land somewhere that confirms service area, price range, and what you actually do, before they pick up the phone.
  5. Turn on call reporting and conversion tracking. Set a minimum call-duration threshold so a 12-second hang-up doesn’t count the same as a 3-minute qualified lead.
  6. Run RSAs and call-only ads in parallel. Give it 2 to 6 weeks of overlapping data collection before drawing conclusions. Compare call volume, cost per call, and call quality side by side.
  7. Shift budget only after parity or improvement. Once RSAs match or beat your call-only baseline, scale back the old campaigns. Don’t pause them the day you launch RSAs.

Pro Tip: Keep your call-only ads live at reduced budget during the entire testing window instead of pausing them outright. A sudden stop can cause a data gap that makes it harder to isolate whether a dip in calls came from the format change or something else, like seasonality.

How to Track and Optimize Call Conversions on RSAs

Once RSAs with call assets are live, the work shifts from setup to tuning. A 60 to 90 second minimum call-duration threshold is the standard practitioner recommendation for counting a call as a real conversion rather than noise from wrong numbers or immediate hang-ups.

  • Set up call conversion actions with that duration threshold and assign each one a dollar value, ideally tied to what a converted lead is actually worth to your business. A lead value calculator makes that math concrete instead of guesswork.
  • Switch to smart bidding, specifically Maximize Conversions or Target CPA, and point it at your call conversion action rather than clicks or impressions.
  • A/B test your RSA headline combinations and landing pages on a real schedule, not a one-time setup. What works in January often shifts by summer as competitors adjust their own copy.
  • Watch three numbers weekly during the first month: call volume, cost per call, and average call duration. A drop in duration alongside stable volume usually means your ad copy is attracting the wrong searchers.
  • Enable call recording where local law permits it. Listening to even a handful of calls tells you more about lead quality than any dashboard metric.

Common Migration Mistakes That Cost You Calls

Most of the damage during this transition is self-inflicted. The mistakes are predictable, and so are the fixes.

  • Pausing call-only ads too soon. Wait for RSA performance to match or beat your baseline before cutting the old campaigns loose.
  • Forgetting to pin call-focused headlines. If “Call Now” and your phone-forward messaging get buried among generic headlines, Google’s testing might not surface them often enough to matter.
  • Ignoring call scheduling. If your business closes at 6 PM, don’t let ads drive calls at 9 PM straight to voicemail. Match your call asset schedule to actual staffed hours.
  • Judging performance on clicks alone. A campaign generating lots of clicks but few calls over 60 seconds isn’t working, no matter how good the click-through rate looks on paper.

Pro Tip: Check your call routing before you launch anything new. A misconfigured forwarding number or a full voicemail box will quietly kill weeks of otherwise solid campaign data, and you won’t know why the numbers looked off until you dig in.

King Digital Marketing Agency runs this migration on a set cadence: audit immediately, build RSAs within the first week, and hold 4 to 6 weeks of parallel testing before touching budget. Call conversions get a 60 to 90 second threshold, with daily monitoring during the first two weeks and a landing-page check for mobile speed, clear service listings, and click-to-call visibility.

Call Ad Migration Timeline And Thresholds

Why Most Migration Advice Misses the Point

The conventional wisdom treats this sunset like a technical box to check: swap the ad type, keep the phone number, move on. That undersells what’s actually at stake. RSAs with call assets aren’t a like-for-like replacement, they’re a different lead-generation mechanism entirely, one that routes some prospects through your website before they ever dial.

Why Most Migration Advice Misses The Point — Overview Diagram

That’s where I think most small business owners get tripped up. They rebuild the ad but skip the landing page work, then wonder why call volume dipped even though “everything migrated fine.” A caller who clicks through to a slow, vague page before deciding whether to call has already been given a reason to hang up before they even picked up the phone.

The other overrated piece of advice: rushing the parallel-test window to save ad spend during the overlap. Two weeks isn’t enough to see how call duration and cost per call settle once Google’s bidding algorithm has real data to learn from. Give it the full stretch. What the reader should prioritize first isn’t the ad copy at all, it’s the page the ad points to and the tracking that tells you whether a call actually mattered.

— Bernadette

Get Your Call Campaigns Migrated Before the Deadline

King Digital Marketing Agency is the alternative to guessing your way through this migration alone: our team builds your RSAs, configures call assets and conversion tracking, and runs the parallel testing window so you’re not the one staring at spreadsheets trying to isolate what changed. We handle the full sequence, from landing page fixes that pre-qualify callers to paid search management that keeps your cost per call in check while Google’s algorithm learns your account.

King Digital Marketing Agency

If your call-only campaigns are still carrying most of your phone leads, the smartest next step is a discovery call where we audit your current setup and map out exactly what your RSA transition should look like, including landing page work through our search engine friendly website design process. Reach out and get that audit scheduled before the February 2026 creation cutoff narrows your options.

Sources

FAQ

What Is a Call-Only Ad?

A call-only ad is a Google Ads format designed to generate phone calls directly from the search results, showing a phone number and click-to-call button instead of a link to a website.

Is Google Getting Rid of Call-Only Ads?

Yes. Google will remove the ability to create new call-only ads in February 2026, and existing ones will stop serving entirely in February 2027.

Are Call-Only Ads Being Deprecated on the API Side Too?

Yes, the Google Ads API deprecation notice confirms CallAdInfo creation is no longer supported, and full API support ends alongside the February 2027 sunset.

How Do I Create a Call Ad Now That Call-Only Ads Are Ending?

You no longer build a standalone call-only ad. Instead, add call assets to your account or campaign settings and attach them to a responsive search ad, which is the format Google now requires for phone-lead generation.

How Long Should I Run RSAs Alongside Call-Only Ads Before Switching Fully?

Most guidance, including King Digital’s own approach, recommends 4 to 6 weeks of parallel testing to compare call volume, cost per call, and call duration before shifting budget away from the older format.

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