How do you know how many leads come from your Google Business Profile?
Google's profile performance report shows activity, not leads: how often people clicked the call button, started message conversations, asked for directions or clicked through to your website. A click count cannot tell you who called, whether anyone answered or whether the job was won. To count real leads, log every call and message that came from the profile in your lead tracker, with the source and an outcome.
What the performance report shows
- Calls: how many times a customer "clicked on the call button" on your profile.
- Messages: the number of "different conversations through messages".
- Directions: how many people asked for directions to your business.
- Website clicks: how many times people clicked the website link on your profile.
- Bookings: completed bookings, counted only when bookings are managed through a booking provider.
- Views: how many people viewed your profile on Search and Maps, counted as unique visitors.
What the numbers do not tell you
Google says performance data is available only for verified profiles, and that a person viewing the profile is "counted once a day". It also says views count only views of the profile, not every view of your business on Google, and that the data includes activity from both its free search results and Google Ads, so the counts mix the two.
Because a call is counted as a click on the button, one click can be a missed call, a wrong number, a spam call or a person who hung up. None of the counts say whether an inquiry became a customer.
How to count profile calls and messages as leads
- When the answer is Google, log the lead with the source "search", or "paid" if they came through a Google ad, and a note that it came from the profile.
- Log profile messages the same day, in the same tracker as every other lead.
- If Google shows far more call clicks than the calls you logged, that can be a sign of missed calls.
- The related answer on tracking phone call leads covers what to record on each call.
Why it is worth the trouble
Click counts show interest; a log with outcomes shows what the profile is actually worth to the business. The related answer on what a Google Business Profile is covers the basics, and the related answer on lead attribution covers giving credit when a customer touched more than one channel.
Sources
Related answers
- What is a Google Business Profile, and does a service business need one?
- What is lead attribution, and why does a small business need it?
- How do you track leads that come in by phone?
Lead systems and lead tracking
A lead that waits a day goes cold, and a lead with no source teaches you nothing. Ascent Vision fixes both.