How to Track Clicks from your Google My Business Listings

[Linda Buquet]

I missed a great post from Dan Leibson (not Andrew) over at Local SEO Guide last month. But a very enlightening discussion just started at our Pro Community so I wanted to share.

Here is Dan's post and as often happens, many of the tips you can pick up from this are in the comments, so read those too.

<a href="http://www.localseoguide.com/seriously-track-your-google-my-business-pages/#comment-154231">Seriously, Track Your Google My Business Pages</a>

Dan gives great step-by-step instructions and shows you how to do it.


Then yesterday Dino Basaldella started a discussion at the Pro Community.

I am sure many of you caught the killer post by +Dan Leibson over on +Andrew Shotland's blog regarding the use of utm tracking in urls on GMB pages. If not, check it out: Seriously, Track Your Google My Business Pages

I have implemented the markup on a few GMB pages and have only a weeks worth of data at hand, but I am already seeing some significant discrepancies between website clicks GMB Insights is reporting vs the metric pushed to Analytics via the utm.

Any thoughts as to why?

Also, I would love to push GMB click-to-call events to Analytics...

There were lots of great comments from Dan, Dave Oremland & Mike Blumenthal.

So read the whole thread, but I wanted to share this one from Mike:

The GMB analytics are not refreshed as regularly and some times don't catch up for several weeks.

Google is also not explicit about what exactly they look at. In the somewhat distant past new features were often not measured.

Given that they are off in both directions and that the numbers are small your assessment to wait is the best one.

But what I'm curious about, and I'll ask Dan to come over and comment, since he's been doing this type of tracking for awhile now?

1) Before Google took away all the G+ links, but in the recent past before that, when Google was showing most of the info you need in the SERPs and Knowledge Graph, was there much traffic from G+ Local pages?

2) Now that G has taken away all the links to G+ L pages and most consumers never see the page I assume, have you seen a big drop off in clicks from those pages?

 

[DanLeibson]

Hey Linda thanks for sharing!

To answer your questions:

1) The amount of clicks that comes from GMB, basically for the past several years, has been relatively negligible compared to total local organic traffic. This is something I like to talk about, both here and at conferences, but it seems like both tracked web data and through off-line client tracking that local organic drives significantly more traffic and leads then GMB. Obviously this is highly vertical dependent and would expect certain verticals like restaurants to differer heavily from this.



2) One of the most important things to consider when tracking these clicks is that you are also tracking clicks from combined gmb/local organic one boxes. I will be talking about this more at State of Search, but we have seen our multi-location brands show gains post 3-packapocolypse in the tracked traffic coming from GMB (as well as our SMB clients). I think there is more hoopla being made about this then it warrants, but we are all just marketers marketing marketing so it is to be expected.

 

[Linda Buquet]

2) One of the most important things to consider when tracking these clicks is that you are also tracking clicks from combined gmb/local organic one boxes.

Ahhh...

I took this comment in your original post too literally:
"I’m a big believer in tracking clicks from a Google My Business page to a website."

Maybe it explained further down, but I focused on the word page and took it literally.
If it would have said pack listing, I would not have had to ask that 2nd Q.

 

[seoWest]

So I think what is important to keep in mind, is that once the utm code has been added to the url (as per Dan's suggestion) we have multiple opportunities to capture the clicks since the link to the website (including utm) manifests in the new Local Finder & Knowledge Panel (see screen grab - random example).

On that note, I am wondering if Dan has managed to capture Click-To-Call events from the Knowledge Panel? I am very interested in learning if this is possible.

I am also trying to learn how to gather specific metrics from Insights (e.g. Click to website and/or Click to call) into OpenOffice/Excel, then convert to graph and ultimately a client-friendly pdf report to demonstrate the value an actively managed GMB page can produce in via strong presence in the Snack Pack. Unfortunately, I am spreadsheet inept at the moment and scouring over tutorials for the correct formulas ;-)

 

[Andy]

Hello

after reading carefully Dan Leibson 's article I wanted to ask if anyone here has clearly understood the advantages of the naming scheme he is using which is somewhat atypical since the source is usually where the URL lives and someone actually mentions that in the comments in the original article. It would be interesting to understand the reports Dan is generating, the data contained etc..

2) Figure out a naming scheme - We usually use “gmb” for the campaign name and “local” for the source and “organic” for the medium (without the quotes). This allow us to more easily roll-up GMB traffic with all other organic traffic (which it essentially is).

Andy

 

[James Watt]

I can't speak for Dan, but I assume it's just preference how he's using it. All it is is a variable after all, and you can crunch your data once you've gathered it however you like. As long as everyone's on the same page with how variables are used on the front end vs how they're interpreted on the back end, it's all a little arbitrary.

My understanding though, the campaign source is just your own name for the referrer. I looked it up, and Google's suggestions for the campaign source is "(referrer: google, citysearch, newsletter4)" which seems completely in line with Dan's choices. You might be confusing the Campaign Source field with the website URL field if you use Google's tool to generate your URLs.

Maybe it'll clear it up to see it in URL form:
example.com/?utm_source=local&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=gmb

 

[DanLeibson]

Thought I replied to this yesterday, oh well.

The schema we use allows us to roll up various other local channel sources in one report to report on top line local campaign metrics as well as break it out by individual campaign types. We work primarily with multi-location national brands, so being able to roll up and drill down are incredibly important.

All that matters is that you can track your data and create reports that are relevant to you/the client.

 

[Andy]

Thank-you for your reply James

Seeing also Dan's answer it seems that there are more degrees of freedom than I had thought - however, I also checked in a textbook ( the bible of GA "Google Analytics Demystified: A Hands on Approach" 700 pages) and it seems that the source is the source of the referral (=where the link lives) and that is usually what people use.

 

[Andy]

Thank-you Dan

The schema we use allows us to roll up various other local channel sources in one report to report on top line local campaign metrics as well as break it out by individual campaign types. Since we work primarily with multi-location national brands, so being able to roll up and drill down are incredibly important.

All that matters is that you can track your data and create reports that are relevant to you/the client.

If I understand correctly you are talking about creating multiple segments for different campaigns, applying them to a dashboard with some basic metrics (sessions, revenue, transactions, users, average session duration .. ) ... can you provide some more info "about the rolling up process"

I am asking because I work with a dentist and am trying to track 3 GMB listings (working at the same dental office) and was wondering whether/how to use the power tip inherent to your naming scheme and which report that would allow me to create

 

[DanLeibson]

Nope that is not what I'm talking about. I'm talking specifically about the tagging schema. Though using the one I mentioned does allow you to dashboard various local campaigns.

Basically if you tag them they way I say you can look at all 3 locations in the GMB campaign or in organic search report under the local source.