Understanding Google My Business & Local Search
Google Places Separates Adwords Express Analtyics
Google has recently (exactly when is not clear) separated the Adwords Express analytics from the standards dashboard view of Places analytics. Until very recently the analytics for both your free Places Listing and your paid Adwords Express ad were shown in a consolidated view:
© Copyright 2024 - MIKE BLUMENTHAL, ALL RIGHT RESERVED.
Comments
5 Comments
And guess what? Google has created a new problem that didn’t exist prior. So, even when the business was not currently active in Adwords Express, one could extend back the reporting dates and the previous AdWords Express activity would appear. Now, in order to review that result, the business must now reactivate a new campaign to review past results. Ouch!
@Jim
That sucks. Google giveth and Google taketh away.
Mike: G Places data is a serious JOKE. Its typical of large businesses sending crummy, non helpful, somewhat misleading and unimportant data to potential clients, hoping to use that data to hook them into becoming customers.
Who provides garbage like this? ReachLocal and Yodle. Its astounding how misleading and ultimately uninformative their data is, which is used to wow the unsuspecting with aggressive sales pitches.
I’d push google to improve the data package at Places.
Meanwhile…is that business spending over $30/click? Heavy spend per lead.
My question is with that kind of spend per click why use adwords express with dramatically less controls than adwords. Over time with work and attention to detail with the more precise Adwords you may be able to hone in on the leads and keywords, the locations, etc. where the leads are more likely to become cases. One needs precision though.
….and one more rant about Google Places Statistics.
First I was checking a business record to see if I could report a problem wherein I would be able to use the new Google customer service element.
In the course of doing that I went through some recent google places statistics for one of the businesses.
Oh my….how utterly and hopelessly absurd and non helpful.
On one recent day it showed a tremendous increase in Impressions. A veritable explosion of impressions. I checked that against a very tight very focused adwords statistics for impressions and actions. The adwords campaign is focused on industry vertical phrases that convert. Its not focused on anything else. Its very revealing and reasonably accurate.
When impressions on that adwords campaign increases we see more leads. We get more visits to the website. Contacts through emails, website forms, and calls increase. When impressions drop the lead volume drops. We have tested this for years.
But in the Google Places statistics we saw this dramatic increase in local Maps/Places Impressions. We also saw very few actions–a relative reduction from average activity. We also saw one of the top ten categories in the vaunted Google Places statistics rank us for the category—> drum roll please
Google
The business is not Google. Its not a search engine. Its a service that is decidedly low tech….not high tech. Also unlike Google we focus on customer service. We are sort of the UNGoogle.
I checked on G Places/Maps for Google for the city in question. While the initial map showed only 1 record–for the Google office in that city…there were almost 90,000 other records cited. I started checking them: There was a transit agency, a bar, a gallery, a couple of local seo type firms, some restaurants, a college reference and in position 25 our business….. the UNGOOGLE.
Ahhhh……google places statistical data. What a worthless piece of crap!!!!!!
😀 😀 😀
I’ve got a new adwords express ad … none of us can get our business to show up on searches…but that little fact doesn’t stop ‘impressions’ statistics from showing ‘activity.’ Yep, that’s right…..the ad has not been seen by anyone using local searches for “electrician” or “electrical contractor.” When Google does start running the ad correctly I wonder if the ‘clicks’ stats will be as reliable.
Comments for this post are closed.