Are People Really Always On Their Phones?

With the release of the newGoogle Metrics Updates, Yext customers can now track impressions more accurately and granularly than ever before. In addition to more accurate reporting of map versus search impressions, we now have the ability to slice the data by mobile versus desktop users.

Read on to uncover the top three trends we identified using these metrics.

Trend #1: More users are using mobile devices to search than ever before

Following the initial COVID-19 shock in March 2020, growth in mobile views has outpaced that of desktop views. While desktop views have generally held steady since then, mobile views have more than doubled. During this time frame, the share of total views coming from mobile devices also increased from 70% to 80%.
A likely cause for this is the need for information at an even faster rate during times of uncertainty – like the pandemic. While restaurants, barber shops, testing centres, and others were operating at odd (if not reduced) hours, consumers needed answers to their questions at all times, no matter where they were searching.

Trend #2: Mobile maps are driving much of the new traffic

While both mobile searches and mobile maps have yielded the growth in overall views, mobile maps seem to be driving more of this change. While mobile searches are up 63% and still a majority of total views, mobile maps views are almost 6x pre-pandemic levels. Customers seem to be searching for info on the go – emphasising the need for businesses to keep their location information up to date.
One thing to note is that the new Google impressions metrics are significantly more accurate than before due to recent deduplication efforts. While the new search views are 67% of what they used to be, map views hover around 6% compared to the old metric. The reason for the steep drop in map views is that when multiple locations for the same brand show up on Google Maps, it now only counts as one view instead of multiple views.

Trend #3: Food services saw the highest share of views coming from mobile devices

Food services topped the charts with 87% of total views coming from mobile. Other industries involving low-cost purchases like recreation and retail followed behind, while more expensive services like education, financial services and hospitality had much lower shares of mobile views. For customers with many locations, keeping store hours and other core information fresh is therefore crucial.
So, what is the overarching lesson to be learned from these trends?

Mobiles are the go-to device for most people, and businesses should keep their information accurate, updated, and easy to consume on multiple formats ranging from mobile phones and tablets to voice assistants. Need help getting started? Find resources on Listings management here.

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*Internal Yext Data: each day's worth of Google listings impressions, for the timeframe of 01-11-2019 through 31-07-2022