New Ways to Measure Multi-Location Marketing Impact

Digital marketing feels like juggling flaming swords on a tightrope.

One minute, you’re optimizing for the latest search algorithm updates; the next, you’re analyzing data from TikTok trends. You also have to manage your business listings, respond to online reviews, and ensure your local pages are fully optimized. 

And all of this is just the tip of the iceberg.

The rise of generative AI in search has transformed how customers discover businesses, leaving marketers scrambling to keep up with ever-evolving algorithms and new content demands. Adding to the challenge is the inability to connect engagement metrics to real bottom-line results to prove your efforts’ direct impact on revenue and justify marketing spend.

This storm of challenges calls for a change in approach — and fast, especially for multi-location businesses. Doing business in multiple locations can be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, the complexity is multiplied by the number of locations; on the other hand, marketing to local customers offers businesses a competitive edge. 

As someone with years of experience in MarTech and B2B SaaS, I’ve seen firsthand how effective location marketing is for multi-location businesses. Let’s dive into how multi-location marketing can make a real difference. 

At its core, location marketing or multi-location marketing, if you have more than one location, is about making sure your business shows up where it matters most — right in front of your customers, and exactly when and where they’re looking for your offer — online.

And when it’s done right, location marketing doesn’t just boost visibility; it drives real-world foot traffic and, thus, revenue. After all, 97% of users search online for a local store, and 28% of searches result in an on-site purchase.

Further, unlike single-location companies, multi-location businesses face unique challenges and opportunities of their own when it comes to marketing: 

1. They manage multiple storefronts, which means they need to ensure each store shows up individually in online searches. 
2. They need to maintain consistency across the brand, which requires both strategic oversight and precise execution at a hyper-local level.

But, as marketing complexity grows, so does the pressure to prove return on investment (ROI). If you’re juggling all tasks related to location marketing in the ever-changing landscape of AI-driven search, tying it all to the bottom line is no easy feat.

Many marketers lack cohesive data sources, with only 32% reporting clear key performance indicators (KPI) for location marketing.

Lack of tools and expertise

Nearly a third of marketers lack skilled data analysts or advanced tools to interpret and leverage data for actionable insights.

Budget constraints

A lack of financial resources restricts marketers from investing in better analytical tools, hampering accurate ROI measurements.

When interviewing hundreds of marketers across industries (and levels, from entry-level to the C-suite), we found they largely fall into three different groups when it comes to how they approach linking location marketing to revenue.

1. Stalled starters (30%): These companies lack the tools and knowledge for full revenue attribution, measuring only basic metrics like impressions and clicks.
2. Metric masters (50%): These companies track typical metrics like impressions, clicks, and reviews but struggle to connect them to final revenue outcomes.
3. Revenue rockstars (20%): These companies have end-to-end tracking, linking all touchpoints across the funnel to revenue, though their systems are still evolving.

Now, allow me to ask: do you recognize yourself?

Wherever you’re at, rest assured. You can become a “revenue rockstar” by shifting to a comprehensive measurement framework that focuses on revenue impact. Let’s look at how to optimize the tracking of location marketing and revenue.

To bridge this tracking gap, we at Uberall have recently introduced location performance optimization (LPO), a new approach that unifies visibility, engagement, reputation, and conversions into one cohesive plan to drive revenue impact at every location. LPO helps brands to not only increase but connect digital visibility with local revenue impact.

The idea is simple: continuously optimize for visibility, reputation, engagement, and conversions to drive both online and offline sales, but place revenue at the heart of all your location marketing efforts. This will create a comprehensive view of performance that showcases impact.

Source: Uberall

The first step in implementing LPO is a mindset shift. Instead of focusing solely on metrics like reviews, impressions, or foot traffic, prioritize revenue. Build dashboards that integrate all aspects of LPO. Let’s take a closer look at the four pillars of LPO that your dashboard needs:

Optimize visibility

Visibility is about how easily customers can find your brand online. It starts with a well-optimized Google Business Profile, Apple Place Card, and other business listings in relevant directories. With detailed and up-to-date business information, visibility drives both digital and physical traffic, translating directly to revenue.

Enhance reputation

Reputation management isn’t just about gathering good reviews. It’s about building trust as a vital factor in local search rankings. LPO encourages focusing on generating and responding to reviews as part of a larger strategy that affects revenue outcomes. People will always trust fellow consumers’ experience more than your ads. 

Increase engagement

Engagement measures how customers interact with your brand online, from social shares to clicks. Bringing these metrics together with visibility and reputation creates a picture of customer interest that’s, in turn, directly tied to conversions.

Boost conversions

Conversions are the end goal of every location marketing effort, and by optimizing visibility, reputation, and engagement, conversions will naturally follow. With LPO, metrics are no longer viewed in isolation but as the culmination of a cohesive, revenue-focused strategy.

Take Barceló Hotel Group, for example. By improving their visibility in search results and building trust through review management, they increased direct bookings and reduced reliance on third-party platforms. This shows how combining visibility, reputation, and engagement directly drives revenue.

However, for effective dashboards, you need metrics that capture a variety of performance attributes. Let’s explore some holistic metrics that help you capture multi-location marketing better. 

This evolution is best seen in our new location performance score (LPS): a single powerful metric combining visibility, engagement, and reputation data tied to revenue performance. By keeping revenue at the center, you’re not only meeting internal goals but also creating a data-driven case to prove the ROI of every campaign. LPS also allows you to compare performance between different locations to learn from top-performing ones and prioritize improving the low-performing ones.

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But it’s not just about switching the structure of your performance analytics; it’s about shifting your focus to metrics that provide deeper insights into customer behavior and engagement. 

Consider moving beyond likes or clicks and looking at more comprehensive metrics like the time spent per page per location or repeat visits per store. These metrics go deeper, revealing customer loyalty and engagement trends. And combined with revenue data, they illustrate which areas of location marketing yield the strongest returns.

Next, let’s examine some additional considerations to improve your data management for tracking location marketing.

Connect with Partho Ghosh on LinkedIn to learn more about location-based marketing strategies.