Managing marketing an abundance of business locations effectively can be burdensome for even the most seasoned marketer. For enterprise multi-location brands, engaging an agency partner can help alleviate the burden of managing your locations’ Google Business Profiles at scale.
Through detailed and ongoing location management, agencies enable quick updates across all prominent search engines, such as if your business were to change your physical address or had a change in your business hours. In 2018, Google introduced a Google My Business Agency dashboard, which is now known as the Business Profiles following the naming rebrand in late 2021.
Registering for the Google Business Profile agency dashboard can impact your agency or business depends on how you had previously set up and managed Business Profiles. Whether you were managing individual locations or bulk verified and chain accounts is also a factor.
What works well with the Google Business Profile agency dashboard
For agencies managing individual locations and SMB brands, the new dashboard offers an easier way for you to see and group all of your locations and claims together, making managing invites and user access simpler.
As a company that solely manages enterprise brand accounts, the layout may look cleaner but does not offer any improved utility when compared to GBP Classic. Luckily, due to Google’s API requirements, we’ve worked through a lot of headaches many others are experiencing in moving to the dashboard.
In this post, we will explore some of the dashboard’s benefits and areas of improvement, from the perspective of agencies that manage enterprise brands.
What we wish were easier:
1. Migration and documentation: “Okay Google, set up the new agency dashboard”
One of the fundamental flaws of the agency dashboard is that you have to create a new account (or unassign all locations to your existing account). It’s a shame that you can’t sign up existing Google Business Profiles to be ‘transferred,’ which would carry all of the locations and permissions you’ve already set up. This would save you having to reconfigure years of account history and business listings management.
Previously, it was reported that Google’s guide to setting up or migrating to the new dashboard was nowhere near as detailed as it needed to be, especially given the complexities involved. Users reported frustration that Google support was unable to assist with any questions about the new agency dashboard.
2. Visualization and operational kinks
As with many product launches, we saw a number of glitches during the first few weeks of the Google My Business announcement. These issues– including invitation and location update errors–hindered workflow and left us lingering between two separate dashboards. This could, in turn, lead to inaccuracies in location information found in Google Search and Maps.
What we are excited about:
1. Review & Q&A notifications
While SMBs have received alerts for new reviews and questions asked and answered, chain businesses with over 100 locations previously never received these when the agency dashboard was first announced. Once migrating to the agency dashboard, we began receiving these immediately.
One point to note is that the email alerts were only sent to the registered organization account.
2. Quicker load Time
Another unexpected benefit is the load time of the account and location groups. We’ve had to structure our days around loading some of the larger accounts. The agency dashboard loads in seconds, and navigation between brands (even those with thousands or tens of thousands of locations) is nearly instantaneous.
3. No longer a 100 location limitation
There’s no longer a limit of 100 individually verified locations in the agency dashboard. For anyone managing brands that require individual verification, this is an operational win. If your managed brands qualify for bulk verification, your locations have never been limited.
4. Other benefits
- Bulk location management ensures each of your locations has accurate and up-to date any time potential customers find your business in Google Search.
- Clients can improve their customer service with access to customer reviews and Q&A.
- Share insights with how many customers find your clients on Google Maps and Search through key metrics, such as Google Business profile views, searches, and conversions.
- Manage user level of access to specific profiles or profile groups.
- Agencies receive tailored support, when needed.
- Promote your client’s sales, special events, and more to through strategic text, video, or photo content with business Posts.
Getting started with the registration process
- Go to business.google.com/agencysignup.
- Click Start now.
- Follow the instructions to register. (You’ll need to use a Google account that’s associated with your company’s email and doesn’t own any profiles.)
Image courtesy of Google
How to structure your agency dashboard
After registering your agency, you will want to structure your team and structures to better streamline dashboard management. Here are a few terms you’ll find when structuring your agency dashboard and what they mean.
- Organization will be the top level profile associated with your agency. You can add people to your organization as owners or members.
- User group is a group to manage users within your agency. They give people in your organization access to specific business groups.
- A business group is a set of locations managed by a user group or organization. You can create more than one business group.
| Capability | Organization owner | Organization member |
|---|---|---|
| Add and remove organization members | ✓ | |
| View organization details | ✓ | ✓ |
| Edit organization name | ✓ | ✓ |
| Delete organization | ✓ |
For more resources on setting up your Google Business Profile agency dashboard, read more here.
