Local Conversion Actions

Jill Goldstein – August 21, 2018

For those of you with brick and mortar stores (and using Google My Business listings), you may have recently noticed some additions in your conversion actions. Local conversion actions (below) count actions (such as directions clicks or click to calls) that are specific to an advertiser’s physical location either during or after interacting with their ad.

Below are the six local conversion actions Google has outlined:

1. Clicks to call: Clicks on the “Call” button on any Google location-based ad or service after an ad interaction.
2. Local actions – Directions: Clicks on the “Get directions” button on any Google location-based ad or service after an ad interaction.
3. Local actions – Website visits: Clicks on the website link on any Google location-based ad or service after an ad interaction.
4. Local actions – Other engagements: Clicks on other tracked user actions (for example: share location, save, etc.) on any Google location-based ad or service after an ad interaction.
5. Local actions – Orders: (Vertical specific) Clicks on the “Order” button on any Google location-based ad or service after an ad interaction.
6. Local actions – Menu views: (Vertical specific) Clicks on the menu link on any Google location-based ad or service after an ad interaction.

Why are Local Conversion Actions Important?

Location extensions are powered by Google My Business (GMB) listings and advertisers using these extensions get opted into serving ads on Google products such as Google Maps. When a user searches using a “near me” or geo-modified search, Google Maps ads are typically shown. Given that they are generated from GMB listings, any click that happened on the listing itself (so after the initial ad click) were previously lost to Google Ads and attributed to the GMB listing itself (instead of the ad). This was causing major attribution issues, until now.

Although we still cannot track ad click > map ad website click > lead or purchase on a website, this is certainly a step in the right direction. These local conversion actions have been automatically added to your account for better measurement of interactions which were previously a blind spot.

Reporting Using the Per Store Report

Along with these new conversions, comes a new report that can give you deeper insights into the stores in which they can be attributed to. To find the Per Store Report:

1. Click All Campaigns or drill deeper into a campaign of choice
2. Select Locations from the left menu
3. Click the Geographic Report drop-down and select Per Store Report.
4. Note that you can add additional columns for added insights.

For additional assistance in understanding Local Conversion Actions, contact the experts at MoreVisibility.