It is no secret that I am not a fan of Reach Local. I outline many reasons for my opinion, in my post dated 6/19/2010, titled “Is Reach Local a Scam - or just another deceptive, over promise, under deliver company?”
One of my claims is that the reports that Reach Local provides their clients are relatively worthless. They do not provide any data that is actually helpful. The one exception to this is the Phone Call tracking, and the Web Forms completions. These reports can be very useful to the small business owner in determining their R.O.I. from their Reach Local Campaign.
Recently, one of my readers (Good Citizen) disagreed with me about the information contained in these reports. Specifically, he claimed that Reach Local gets “measurable results and offer 100% transparency in all their reports.” Good Citizen went further in his following post and claimed that “Reach Local reports do show bounce rate, pageviews, time on site, etc.”
I want to ensure that I always provide accurate information on my blog. My first thought was that Reach Local may have changed their reports since the lasta time I saw one, and that Good Citizen may have access to information I did not have. I allowed for the possibility that I was wrong.
Good Citizen’s claims are NOT true. I had another reader step up, and let me log into their Reach Local account, and review the reports myself. I spent a good amount of time looking at all these reports, and took screenshots of every page. Now I share these with you, so you can determine if Reach Local provides valuable Data or not.
I have hidden any information that would identify the RL client who gave me access to his reports.
Below are screenshots taken from Reach Locals Reporting center. Click any image to enlarge it.
Keyword Summary Report.
Reach Local Spending entire budget
Summary of Conversions from Campaign
Google Traffic Report
As you can see, there is no anlaytics information in these reports. No Bounce Rate, Page Views, Time on Site etc. Good Citizen made claims that this information was in here, but it is not.
Please review these reports – and let me know your thoughts on them. Are they useful, or just smoke and mirrors?
Chad Musgrove
Owner
Pro AD Insight
#1 by Anon on December 28th, 2011
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Log back into the platform and keep digging buddy…
Google now requires ALL “Google Authorized Re-sellers” to disclose their margins to clients and % of budget spent on Google.
This information is hidden 5 clicks from the customer log in page and in tiny writing at the bottom of some obscure page. It’s there in black and white for customers to see how they are being ripped off by this business.
#2 by Muskrat37 on December 28th, 2011
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I need another username and password. The client who shared with me previously is no longer a customer of Reach Local.
If any current Reach Local client is reading this, and willing to share – I will hide all your private information. Please contact me via the contact form, and I will give you a call.
Regards,
Chad