Understanding Google's New Metrics Update: Unlocking Insights For Business Growth

It's only been a few months since the most recent Google Performance API update, and we've already witnessed incredible ways that businesses have harnessed its potential. If you're just getting started – or want some extra inspiration for how to make the most of this update — we're here to guide you. In this post, we'll first zoom out to help you understand the impact of the Google Business Performance API update. Then, we'll unpack what it means for your business's growth.

First, you may have noticed that your impression count now appears much lower than what it was in the past. This isn't due to performance but rather a new way of counting: in the Google Performance API update in February 2023, Google shifted its focus to counting unique visitors. This means that now if a user views your listing five times in a day, it will be counted as one impression instead of five impressions (how Google had counted it in the past). Further, this change is aimed at providing more accurate insights for you by tracking how many unique individuals viewed your listing, instead of counting repeat views.

We've also noticed delays in receiving these analytics from Google from the new update. This means we now have to wait up to seven days longer to receive the latest data. To get ahead of this change, we recommend planning ahead to build these delays into your work timelines. For example, if you always pull monthly metrics on the first week of the next month, knowing that analytics will take longer to come in from Google, you might schedule metrics meetings on the second week of the next month instead.

Lastly, Google also introduced a few new metrics to track new business conversations, bookings, and food orders received on your business profile. Additionally, you can now identify the key terms users are using to find your business. You can read our blog post here for specifics.

Now, let's dig into what makes this update exciting for your business's growth.

If you are using Yext to manage your listings, then we have good news: we've already updated our platform to make these Google metrics easily accessible to you. (See here for documentation on how to use these metrics in the platform.)

Regardless of how you access these new metrics, here are some helpful ways that you can optimize your business' growth:

• Adapt your content to the context (desktop or mobile) in which your audience views your GBP

• Improve your overall business conversion — specifically in multi-location businesses — by comparing your CTR (click-through rate) across locations and pinpointing profile differences that drive higher conversions

• Run A/B tests on the content within your GBP to experiment with what content resonates with your users and drives conversions

• Increase your GBP discoverability and conversion by adding a first-party link for food orders (for example) in your GBP in order to better track your customer conversions

Understanding what your customers are searching for empowers you to optimize your listings content and improve your organic search rankings. The new update gives you easy access to the key search terms that users are using to find your listing. Historical data is also available, so you can find trends in the search terms used to find your business over time.

Once again, see here for documentation on how to start using this metric on Yext. Give your SEO team more to play with — or, if you're new to SEO, this is the perfect impetus to start. Here are some more ways to engage with these metrics:

• Optimize your website's content, including titles, headings, meta tags, and on-page copy, to align with your most common keywords and improve your organic search rankings

• Enhance your listing with images that align with your key terms; this is particularly important with Google's increased emphasis on visuals

• Inform your content strategy by identifying the popular topics and trends that users are searching for. Then create targeted content that addresses your user's intent

• Reinforce your competitive strategy by looking into new keyword variations or long-tail keywords that your competitors might have overlooked

The availability of keyword tracking for locations opens up enormous opportunities to identify new keywords that are driving traffic to your profiles, so embrace them.

Google's new metrics bring many exciting insights and opportunities for growth. As you explore different ways to use these metrics, we look forward to supporting and collaborating with you to unlock the best digital experience for your users.

Learn more with our full guide to Google Business Profile.