How does revenue from Google Business compare to traditional search?
"How much is the traffic worth?"
My client was wondering how traffic from their Google Business listings compared to traditional search.
Traditional search traffic goes direct to your website from search results - instead of visiting your Google Business listing first.
It was a good question because:
- They were managing their Google Business listings internally (handled by their admin staff).
- They were paying an agency five-figures a month to run an ongoing SEO campaign.
This led to an analysis that included:
- 5,500 leads
- $1,744,000+ in tracked revenue
If you are a business owner: This case study will show you how Google Business can be your most profitable channel.
If you are a marketer: You will see how important it is to segment the performance of Google Business and traditional search.
Where did the data come from?
This data is from a US-based client that operates in financial services.
They operate in 3 states and have multiple Google Business listings.
Their primary goal is to drive qualified leads from their marketing efforts.
Leads come through:
- An online application.
- Phone calls.
The hard part:
Collecting the data we needed
There are a number of challenges to accurately attribute data to the right traffic channel (Google Business vs. traditional search).
Some were easier to solve than others.
Challenge #1:
Which online applications came from Google Business - and which came from traditional search?
I love Google Analytics (what my client uses) - but it is horrible at segmenting traffic from Google Business.
The default is to attribute Google Business traffic to the google/organic channel in its reporting.
Which means it gets lumped together with traditional search.
The (easy) solution: We added UTM parameters to each listing. This allowed us to see which listings drove which leads.
Challenge #2:
How can we segment callers who were new leads - versus callers who were existing clients?
Basic call tracking gives us the ability to attribute calls to a traffic channel.
But that doesn't solve the problem.
The business gets calls from new leads and existing clients...
So we needed a way of tracking leads generated via phone.
The solution: We created a process for agents taking the calls.
They were tasked with entering the call tracking number into the CRM, along with the lead's regular details.
This process was added to their standard operating procedures.
This has since been automated. We initially had to take a manual approach due to technical constraints with the client's CRM and call tracking platform.
Challenge #3:
How can we attribute revenue back to each traffic channel?
Tracking the number of leads generated from traditional search and Google Business is one thing.
But attributing revenue back to a specific lead, and tracking that lead to a specific traffic channel, can be a lot more difficult.
Those crucial data points are usually lost in the flow between Google Analytics, the CRM, and the payment processing platform.
The solution: We set up an end-to-end integration, using a combination of hidden fields, session IDs, and post-backs to make this work.
The setup required will vary, based on your tech stack.
How we got dependable results
To get results we trusted, we needed a large sample size of data.
We also needed a long enough timeline from which we collected leads, to account for seasonality.
Timeline:
Leads for the client can take anywhere from 30 to 90 days to close.
So we excluded any leads generated in the previous 90 day window.
Leads were selected from the preceding 12 month period.
Sample Sizes:
We randomly selected a total of 5,500 leads:
- 2,750 leads from traditional search.
- 2,750 leads from Google Business.
Key Performance Indicator (KPI):
The client was most interested in comparing revenue per lead between the two channels.
Here is how it was calculated:
Revenue Per Lead = Total Revenue Generated / Total Number of Leads
Important Note: Revenue per lead is not a useful metric in a vacuum. For added context, you will need to compare it to another metric, like cost per lead.
At the time of this analysis, my client had been investing 6 times the budget into traditional search versus Google Business.
The results
Here is the revenue per lead for each channel:
Traditional Search: $153.21
Google Business: $481.07
Here is a breakdown of the data:
Google Business didn't win by a small margin...
Leads from Google Business drove 314% more revenue than traditional search.
Key takeaways
#1 Segment your traffic.
At the very minimum, you should be segmenting your traffic between traditional search and Google Business.
Most companies do not need to go through the lengths we did in this case study, but something is often better than nothing.
For example:
If you can segment leads by traffic channel, but you cannot attribute specific revenue, then you can use average close rates and revenue to build estimates.
#2 Google Business deserves its own budget.
Most companies make this mistake:
They create an SEO budget and Google Business gets added to it.
At its extremes, this leads to two scenarios:
1️⃣ SEO performs well, and more budget gets added.
This sounds good on the surface. But which parts are performing well, and which aren't?
If you can't tell, it often leads to over-investment in SEO, and ROI quickly erodes.
2️⃣ SEO performs poorly, and budget gets cut.
But what if Google Business is producing outsized returns, compared to the rest of your SEO efforts?
This means the baby gets thrown out with the bathwater.