Have you connected Google Business Profile to Google Analytics?
Starting in June, you can now connect Google Business Profile to Google Analytics 4. If you've ever tried to figure out exactly how much business your profile is generating, you know that information hasn't been easy to piece together.
Your Business Profile shows one part of the story. GA4 shows another. Your profile can tell you how many people called, requested directions, or clicked through to your website. Once they land on the site, GA4 takes over, showing which pages they viewed and whether they took action.
The problem was that these two pieces of information lived in different places. Google just announced a direct product link between the two, bringing key Business Profile activity, website clicks, phone calls, bookings, direction requests, and other interactions, straight into GA4.
It might sound like a small technical update. I think it's going to change how local businesses understand the value of their Google presence.
Why This Matters
When most people think about Google Analytics, they think about website traffic. How many people visited? Where did they come from? Which pages did they view?
That's useful, but it's not the whole customer journey for a local business. Someone looking for a restaurant might find your Business Profile and request directions without ever visiting your website. Someone searching for a contractor might tap the call button right from Maps. Someone looking for a massage might book straight off the profile.
All of those actions have value, even though none of them show up as a traditional website visit. And they're usually the actions that matter most to a business owner. Nobody gets excited hearing that website sessions went up. They want to know whether more people called, booked, or looked for directions. Connecting Business Profile to GA4 moves reporting away from traffic for traffic's sake and closer to actual business impact.
What About UTMs?
If you're already using UTMs on your Business Profile links, keep doing that, they still matter. But they only ever covered part of the story.
A UTM tags a link so GA4 knows a click came from your Business Profile instead of your appointment page, a Google Post, or an ad. That's still useful, and we're not turning it off in client accounts.
What a UTM can't do is track anything that doesn't involve clicking a link. A call from the profile, a direction request, a booking, none of that is a link click, so none of it ever showed up in GA4. That's the gap the new connection closes: it counts those non-click actions too.
Use both: the GBP-GA4 connection to see all of your local engagement, UTMs to see exactly which link drove a website visit.
The Real Opportunity Is Better Decision-Making
Connecting these two accounts won't increase your rankings because the connection exists. What it will do is provide more clairity on what's actually working.
You might learn people call constantly but rarely visit the site, a sign your Business Profile is doing most of the converting. You might see clicks to the site without a booking, which could point to a landing page problem. You might find strong direction requests and weak call volume, which could be exactly what you want, depending on your business.
The goal isn't to have more data for data’s sake, It's understanding the customer journey from finding your business to actually converting.
Google Business Profile has always been one of the most important platforms for a local business. Now having all the data pulled onto Google Business Profile should make it easier for local business to see why.
Curious how your business profile stacks up and improvements you should make? Check out our Magnetic Score to get your action plan.