Cordwainer CallRail Implementation

Overview

CallRail was approved for immediate implementation on the Cordwainer site during the 2026-02-19 alignment sync. Phone calls are a significant unconverted conversion type — without a tracking number on the site, any visitor who dials directly from the website is invisible to Google Ads and Analytics reporting.

Implementation was previously deferred until the site backend was stable. That threshold has now been met.

Owner: Sebastian Gant
Related client: ^[1]

Why CallRail Was Deferred Initially

The team had discussed CallRail earlier in the engagement but held off deliberately. The rationale: avoid adding complexity to a site that was still being stabilized post-launch. As of this meeting, the backend is considered stable enough to proceed.

"We wanted to get the website right first, we wanted to get all of the back end working smoothly. We didn't want to have any stuff causing things to be complicated until we were comfortable that everything's working right. Now we're comfortable. Let's put CallRail on." — Mark Hope

Implementation Notes

Disable the Whisper Feature

CallRail's default "whisper" behavior announces to the call recipient where the call originated (e.g., "This call is from Google Ads"). This creates confusion — staff answer and hear the whisper prompt, not the caller, leading to awkward "hello? hello?" exchanges.

Decision: Disable whisper entirely. Calls should pass through transparently. Staff will not know CallRail is in use, which is fine — the tracking happens in the background.

Educate Internal Staff on the Tracking Number

When CallRail is active, the phone number displayed on the website will be a CallRail tracking number, not the business's primary number. Staff or the client who look up the site may be confused by this.

Action: Before or at go-live, notify the Cordwainer team (Camel and relevant staff) that:
- The number shown on the website is intentional
- It is a tracking number that forwards to their real line
- Calls will come through normally — nothing changes for callers

Connect to Google Ads Conversions

The primary purpose of CallRail here is to capture phone call conversions that are currently invisible to the Google Ads campaign. Once implemented, CallRail call events should be imported as conversions in Google Ads.

This is especially important given the existing campaign context: 172 clicks and a strong 7% CTR on ~$300 spend, but only 1 reported conversion. A significant portion of the missing conversions are likely phone calls.

Context: Broader Conversion Tracking Fixes

CallRail is one of two conversion tracking issues being addressed simultaneously. See also:

• GCLID / WP Rocket fix — WP Rocket was firing before the Google Click ID registered, causing form submissions to be unattributed. Mark has already patched this setting.
• Gravity Forms migration — The current form platform has had 14 failed email sends in 30 days (broken SMTP). E-Shock is replacing all forms with Gravity Forms immediately. Until this is resolved, form-based conversions remain unreliable regardless of GCLID tracking.

All three fixes (GCLID order, Gravity Forms, CallRail) should be in place before drawing conclusions from conversion data.

Action Items

• [ ] Implement CallRail on Cordwainer site — disable whisper, configure tracking number to forward to client line (@Sebastian Gant)
• [ ] Set up CallRail call events as conversions in Google Ads (@Sebastian Gant)
• [ ] Notify Cordwainer team about the tracking number appearing on the site (@Sebastian Gant)

Related

• ^[2]
• ^[3]
• ^[4]