Before you begin tracking calls using dynamic number insertion, it’s important to confirm that it’s working. Because CallRail's dynamic number insertion JavaScript snippet creates a cookie that remembers visitor’s original referring source, website administrators commonly think that dynamic number insertion isn’t working properly even when it is.
First, clear your cookies
Before you test, clear your cookies. Each test must be performed as if you are a brand new visitor; otherwise, number swapping will not work as expected. If you’ve navigated directly to the website before, CallRail will identify you as a “direct” visitor, rather than as a visitor from the tracking source you are testing.
If you prefer to test dynamic number insertion without clearing your cookies, you can do so by accessing the website in a private browsing window. Using a private browsing window (like Incognito mode in Google Chrome) allows you to simulate yourself as a first-time visitor to the website. It's important to ensure no other private browsing windows are open when testing number swapping using this method. Additionally, each time you perform want a test, you will need fully close all private browsing windows and open a new window.
Simulate an organic visit
For the purpose of this example, we’ll assume you’re testing a “Google Organic” tracking number.
- Clear your cookies, or open a fresh private web browser.
- Navigate to the source website (ie. Google.com).
- Search for your full URL on the search engine (ie. “www.yoursite.com”).
- In the search results, click the link to your website.
- Navigate to a page containing the phone number.
- Confirm that the tracking number is displayed. If so, congratulations, it works!
Simulate a Google PPC click
For Google Ads, you can manually simulate a click without requiring you to click on an ad by appending "?gclid=test" to your URL.
For example: https://www.yourwebsite.com/?gclid=test
Simulate a Bing paid click
Testing Microsoft Advertising is similar to testing Google PPC, but works best if tested in Firefox's private browsing mode. You can manually simulate a click without actually clicking on a Bing ad by appending "?utm_source=bing&utm_medium=ppc" or "?msclkid=test&utm_medium=cpc" to your URL.
For example: https://www.yourwebsite.com/?utm_source=bing&utm_medium=ppc
For example: https://www.yourwebsite.com/?msclkid=test&utm_medium=cpc
Mimic mobile devices
You can test dynamic number insertion for popular mobile devices like iPhones, iPads, Androids, etc using the Google Chrome browser's mobile emulation feature. Use the same techniques listed above for simulating visits when opening the source website using mobile emulation.
If you’re having trouble, we’re happy to help. Contact us and be sure to include a link to the website where you've installed the dynamic number insertion code.
