I need help.. - Agency Business Manager?

[GBP-Rob]

Hello,

I am a bit desperate, and wanted to check if there are any tips or fixes on my issues. I realize you have to do your own work, and figure it out, but hopefully someone else has been in my situation before, and know how frustrating it can be.

In oct last year, I came in as a dedicated local SEO role, and GBP is my pride. With not many agencies in my country taking it seriously, we really shine in this field, optimizing it by doing it honestly and correctly and removing things that are not within the guidelines. Still, I get issues, and I am drowning in cases where I am not the triggering factor.

We had 3000 listings last week, and now we are up to 3080. All of these are not profiles I have created, as the entire agency has access to the account.
Earlier I set everyone up as members of the organisation istead of owners or they used the main account to do things. Did not have any effect of course, as they have access.

I understand they just want to help out their clients by doing things to the listing they now will make them more searchable, but it often has consequenses.
Edits are performed, and as you know, there are no history or logs to check out what has been done. I have do dig it out of them, and sometimes after a couple of rounds, I get the admission. I understand that they do not want to tell me, as I get frustrated of course as I have informed them not do anything if unsure which now has led to DONT TOUCH ANYTHING. BUT, it still happens.

I was thinking I would just kick them out, and group the listings in the contact persons name, but that wont change anything as they can still perform edits...
I could kick them out, and make them ask me for absolutely everything. But they NEED access to the statistics. How can I without drowning in statistics requests maintain control over our account?

I hope someone has anything at all to contribute with.

Sincerely,
Rob

 

[JeffClevelandTN]

Hi @GBP-Rob, that is a lot of listings! We don't manage near that amount, but we are very selective on who has access to make edits to the client's GBP. If you are wanting to do something similar and have a much smaller group perform edits but need numerous people having access to the Insights (statistics), maybe you should consider a 3rd party GPB/GMB reporting tool? We use a couple of different reporting tools, but for our GPB Insights we utilize DashThis, but it probably doesn't have the price point you'd need as it does a lot more than just GBP Insights as it allows us to create reports for our client's Google Analytics, GBP, Facebook, Instagram, AdWords, Search Console, and a couple dozen more integrations. If you go with a white-label solution, you can then brand your reports and possibly automate the process to send direct to your client, which sounds like it could save lots of time. However, you could also just have the report go to one or more of your internal employees to review the client's info. Just doing a search for either "GBP reporting software" or "GMB reporting software" will provide you dozens of solutions. If you already have a subscription tool for other types of reports, maybe it already offers GPB reporting too. Looks like there were several viable options that would be somewhere between 1 and 2 euros (or between 10 and 20 kroner) per client per month for just the GBP reporting. It could possibly be even less if you are wanting to do this for all your profiles as 3000+ would be custom priced.

Here are just a couple potential solutions:

Google My Business Reporting Tool | Local SEO | Free Trial

Efficiently manage large Google Business Profile accounts. Free 10m onboarding to get full access to dashboards and reporting. Reputation and Content included.

gmbapi.com

Google My Business reporting tool - Swydo

Track your clients’ Google My Business listings performance quickly and easily with Swydo’s Google My Business reporting integration. Start a trial today!

www.swydo.com

If you happen to be using Google Studio for reporting, you may want to consider this plug-in to add GPB Insights: Jepto — Pricing and Subscriptions

 

[JeffClevelandTN]

Hi @GBP-Rob, that is a lot of listings! We don't manage near that amount, but we are very selective on who has access to make edits to the client's GBP. If you are wanting to do something similar and have a much smaller group perform edits but need numerous people having access to the Insights (statistics), maybe you should consider a 3rd party GPB/GMB reporting tool? We use a couple of different reporting tools, but for our GPB Insights we utilize DashThis, but it probably doesn't have the price point you'd need as it does a lot more than just GBP Insights as it allows us to create reports for our client's Google Analytics, GBP, Facebook, Instagram, AdWords, Search Console, and a couple dozen more integrations. If you go with a white-label solution, you can then brand your reports and possibly automate the process to send direct to your client, which sounds like it could save lots of time. However, you could also just have the report go to one or more of your internal employees to review the client's info. Just doing a search for either "GBP reporting software" or "GMB reporting software" will provide you dozens of solutions. If you already have a subscription tool for other types of reports, maybe it already offers GPB reporting too. Looks like there were several viable options that would be somewhere between 1 and 2 euros (or between 10 and 20 kroner) per client per month for just the GBP reporting. It could possibly be even less if you are wanting to do this for all your profiles as 3000+ would be custom priced.

Here are just a couple potential solutions:

Google My Business Reporting Tool | Local SEO | Free Trial

Efficiently manage large Google Business Profile accounts. Free 10m onboarding to get full access to dashboards and reporting. Reputation and Content included.

gmbapi.com

Google My Business reporting tool - Swydo

Track your clients’ Google My Business listings performance quickly and easily with Swydo’s Google My Business reporting integration. Start a trial today!

www.swydo.com

If you happen to be using Google Studio for reporting, you may want to consider this plug-in to add GPB Insights: Jepto — Pricing and Subscriptions

Forgot to mention that @GMBapi.com is a forum member and might want to provide their feedback

 

[Marcin Karwowski]

Hi. I have a similar problem and if you don't want to do everything yourself, you will never get rid of it 100%. As @JeffClevelandTN wrote, if they only need statistics, you can send them to you or another authorized person or use an external tool (without access to profiles). You can also educate them all the time and explain that they should not introduce changes without your knowledge - but it is a very long and complicated process. And even so, without the editing history, there will always be someone who will change it and will not admit it, it is a common problem on agency accounts where many people have access. I focused on education, but with a higher staff turnover, it can be difficult to control.

 

[GBP-Rob]

Yeah.. I need them to have access themselves, and not rely on me as I have so much work - and the less I get dragged out of focus, the better.

The only real option I have seen so far is using an API until we can create a custom API ourselves..

At least then they can shut of all edits, and have access to statistics, post and photos publishing.. which are fine..

It is a bummer that its not a better solution for this

 

[GMBapi.com]

Hi @GBP-Rob, drop 30 min in my agenda via Calendly.com/michelvan and I can show you how you can save time monitoring these listings via our tool. We can't do much on the editing problems you are facing but pretty sure our tooling will up your ability to spot priorities and optimisations . We offer free testing to everyone. Hope to talk to you soon!

 

[GBP-Rob]

Hi @GBP-Rob, drop 30 min in my agenda via Calendly.com/michelvan and I can show you how you can save time monitoring these listings via our tool. We can't do much on the editing problems you are facing but pretty sure our tooling will up your ability to spot priorities and optimisations . We offer free testing to everyone. Hope to talk to you soon!

Your GBP doesn't really scream like this is someone who knows what they are doing, but hey, who am I to judge?

 

[GMBapi.com]

@GBP-Rob haha good point! We spend our time on our product and our customers marketing not on our own. But let me put that a bit higher on the list - this is embarrassing indeed. Check out the GMB listings of our Dutch customers Tempo Team, Randstad or Pets Place.