Every month, many businesses increase their online spending without knowing what their previous budget actually delivered. They are not lacking commitment; they are lacking clear benchmarks. Yet some of the information they need is already available for free in tools they use every day but rarely take the time to analyse.
This article introduces a simple approach: track three metrics, in the right order, before making any spending decisions.
Why measuring first changes how you spend
Every online expense should address a specific problem. If nobody sees your business, you need to improve your visibility. If people see you but nobody gets in touch, the problem lies in what your page communicates. If people contact you but no sale follows, the issue may be your response, your response time, or your offer.
These are three different challenges, each requiring a different investment. Increasing your advertising budget when the bottleneck lies at the second or third stage simply means paying more for the same results. It is one of the most common mistakes businesses make, and one of the easiest to avoid.
Metric 1 — Visibility: how many people see your business
Start with a simple question: does your business appear when someone searches for your company or for the products or services you offer?
Google provides performance metrics for verified Google Business Profiles. Two of them are particularly useful at this stage.
Views
Google tracks how many people viewed your Business Profile on Google Search and Google Maps, counting each person only once per day. This figure answers a straightforward question: does your business appear in search results for people who do not already know you?
Search terms
Google also lists the search terms users entered when your Business Profile appeared in their results. This data is updated at the beginning of each month, with a possible delay of up to five days.
This is one of the most revealing—and most overlooked—indicators. If the only search terms associated with your profile are your business name, you are mainly being found by people who already know you. If relevant industry terms appear, such as your service, product, or neighbourhood, your online presence is starting to attract people who are actively looking for what you offer.
Simply reviewing these search terms can often help you rewrite your homepage. They reveal the actual words your customers use, which are rarely the same as the polished language found in your brochures.
Metric 2 — Contact: how many people take the next step
Being seen does not mean being chosen. The second metric measures the transition from attention to intent.
Google provides several indicators at this stage: calls, meaning the number of clicks on the call button, provided a phone number has been added to your profile; website clicks, meaning the number of clicks through to your website from your Business Profile; direction requests, meaning the number of requests for directions to your business location; and messages, meaning the number of distinct conversations initiated through messaging.
What these numbers tell you together
High visibility but few contacts usually points to the same problem: your page does not communicate quickly enough what you do, who you serve, and where you operate. Missing business hours, an incorrect category, outdated photos, or a phone number that goes unanswered can each cost you potential customers without costing you a single franc in advertising.
Conversely, a healthy contact rate combined with low visibility is a positive sign. Your page is doing its job; it simply needs more people to see it. This is the clearest situation in which investing in greater visibility makes sense.
What about private messages?
When conversations continue on WhatsApp, the WhatsApp Business app provides its own basic statistics, including the number of messages read. While these figures do not constitute a complete performance dashboard, they provide another useful reference point for understanding whether incoming messages are being read and followed up on.
Metric 3 — Customers: how many contacts turn into sales
The third metric is the one that ultimately matters most—and the one no platform can provide on its own. No platform knows whether the call you received last Tuesday resulted in an actual order.
You therefore need to track this information manually or use your own internal tracking tool. It only takes a few minutes a day: create one entry for every enquiry you receive, recording the date, the channel it came from, the nature of the enquiry, the response you provided, and the outcome. A notebook is enough to get started. A spreadsheet becomes more practical after the first month.
What this data can teach you
After four weeks, three important insights should begin to emerge. First, you will know where your customers actually come from, rather than where you assume they come from. Second, you will understand how long it takes you to respond to enquiries and how that delay may be costing you business. Third, you will know what proportion of enquiries turn into sales, broken down by channel.
Only at this point does a spending decision become a calculation based on evidence rather than a gamble.
Put this method into practice this week
The process involves four simple steps.
- Verify your Google Business Profile. Make sure it is verified. Without verification, the relevant performance data will not be available.
- Open the Performance section. Record your views and the search terms from the previous month.
- Track your contact metrics. Add calls, website clicks, direction requests, and messages to the same record.
- Start tracking every enquiry. Open a notebook or spreadsheet and create one entry for each enquiry you receive, starting today.
One month later, you will have three sets of comparable figures and a clearer understanding of where improvements are needed. Whatever your next investment may be, you will be making that decision based on facts.
How we use these three metrics at Honowa Technologies
At Honowa Technologies, we begin online presence projects by reviewing these indicators. This approach helps us avoid starting a website redesign when the real problem is an incomplete Google Business Profile, or paying to attract more visitors to a page that fails to convert them into customers.
If you need help identifying and implementing the next steps in your search engine optimisation (SEO) strategy, contact us. Honowa Technologies will be glad to help you improve your online presence and make more informed digital marketing decisions.
Honowa Technologies SARL
Makepe, Douala, Littoral
Cameroon.
Sources: Google Help Centre, "Business Profile performance metrics" (support.google.com, accessed 8 October 2026); official WhatsApp blog, overview of the WhatsApp Business app (accessed 1 October 2026).
Author: Carlos Dounla, Honowa Technologies