“Reviews are important.” Everyone says so, but how much do they really bring in? For a manager who has to choose between an advertising campaign, a new website and the time spent on their Google profile, it is a fair question. Good news: with the figures Google makes available to you, you can estimate the value of your profile and your reviews, without a complicated spreadsheet.
Your Google profile’s value chain
The path of a customer who finds you on Google breaks down into measurable steps:
- the view: your profile is displayed in Search or on Google Maps;
- the action: the user calls, asks for directions, clicks through to your website or books;
- the conversion: some of these actions turn into customers;
- the value: each customer spends an average basket, and sometimes much more if they come back.
Reviews mainly act on step 2: for the same number of views, a well-rated profile, with many recent reviews and careful replies, turns more views into actions. They also act on step 1, since Google takes a business’s prominence into account in its local ranking, as it explains in its official tips.
Step 1: get your figures
For each verified profile, Google provides free of charge the number of views, calls, direction requests, website clicks and, depending on the business, bookings and orders. Its help on performance insights details these indicators, and our article on your profile’s insights explains how to read them.
Note, over one month: views, calls, directions, website clicks.
Step 2: estimate your conversion rate
Not every action becomes a customer. Estimate, from your experience, the share that turns into business:
- for a restaurant, a direction request very often turns into a visit;
- for a tradesperson, one call in two or three can lead to a quote, and some quotes to a job;
- for a shop, directions are a good indicator of an in-store visit.
These rates vary greatly from one business to another: use your own. If you do not know them, note for two weeks how many new customers say “I found you on Google”.
Step 3: multiply by the value of a customer
Multiply the estimated number of customers by your average basket. To go further, take into account lifetime value: a satisfied customer of a hairdresser, a garage or a neighbourhood restaurant often comes back several times a year.
A worked example
Take a neighbourhood restaurant, with deliberately simple figures:
- 4,000 views a month on its profile;
- 300 direction requests and 80 calls;
- we estimate that 60% of directions and 40% of calls turn into tables, i.e. about 210 tables a month;
- with 2.5 covers per table and an average bill of €25, that represents about €13,000 of monthly revenue attributable to the profile.
If, thanks to more reviews and regular replies, the action rate rises from 9.5% to 11% of views, that is about 60 more actions a month, i.e. more than €2,000 of additional revenue. These figures are illustrative: redo the calculation with yours, the order of magnitude is often telling.
What moves the action rate
Several levers, all linked to trust, increase the share of views that turn into actions:
- the rating and above all the number of recent reviews;
- replies: a business that replies is reassuring;
- recent, good-quality photos;
- accurate information: opening hours, phone, menu;
- action buttons: booking, ordering, calling;
- posts, which show a lively business.
Our guide to optimizing your profile details each of these levers, and our guide to getting more reviews covers the most important of them.
Compare with your other spending
Once you have estimated the value of your profile, compare it with your other channels: advertising, paid directories, commission-based platforms. The Google profile has two rare advantages: it costs nothing in commission, and the effort accumulates (a review received today works for you for years). The time spent managing it is often the most profitable investment in your local marketing.
The limits of the exercise
This calculation remains an estimate. Google’s statistics do not see everything (a customer who finds you on Google and then walks past your shop window), and your conversion rates are approximations. What matters is not precision to the penny, but the order of magnitude and the trend: if your actions increase by 20% after three months of effort, the effect is real.
How Replik helps you measure
With Replik’s insights, you follow views, calls, directions and clicks day after day, compared with the previous period, with your action rate. The AI analysis links changes in your figures to your activity on the profile (reviews, posts, photos) and suggests priority actions. And to act on the main lever, Replik helps you reply to your reviews and get more of them.
Frequently asked questions
Do you need an analytics tool to do this calculation? No. Google’s figures and an honest estimate of your conversion rates are enough to get an order of magnitude. A tool becomes useful to follow the trend month after month without spending time on it.
Does a negative review lose you customers? An isolated negative review, surrounded by many positive reviews and followed by a careful reply, carries little weight. What drives people away is recurring criticism on the same topic, or reviews left unanswered.
How long before you see an effect? The first effects on the action rate often appear within a few weeks, as soon as the volume of recent reviews increases. The effect on the rating and visibility is more gradual: allow several months.
In short
Your reviews have a measurable value: they turn more views into calls, visits and bookings. Get your figures, estimate your conversion rates and average basket, and follow the trend over time. You will then know exactly what a well-kept profile brings in. Start with the free audit of your profile.