SAN DIEGO, Aug. 08, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Chatmeter, the leader in local search marketing and review management, today released several updates to its comprehensive dashboard to help brands and retailers better engage with customers and track the conversion of searches to actual purchases.
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Given Chatmeter’s long established partnerships with local search directories, it has a unique ability to launch innovative enhancements that solve difficult challenges facing the local search industry. The latest features include:
- Real-Time Response to Reviews – Responding to reviews directly from the dashboard was a frequent request by clients but it wasn’t until recently that local search sites opened up their APIs to preferred partners, like Chatmeter. Previously, brand marketers would have to maintain dozens or even hundreds of logins for each location and review sites to respond. With this latest Chatmeter feature, marketers can now respond in real-time and all within the same dashboard, saving time and simplifying the administrative process.
- Actionable Search Performance Tracking – The local search industry has had a tremendous challenge with attribution, especially when compared to the e-commerce space. With e-commerce, purchase activity is tracked throughout the lifecycle of a customer through built-in digital tracking mechanisms. However, when people conduct local searches online or on their mobile phones, they usually go to the preferred business and make a purchase, which is an offline experience. Chatmeter has now implemented additional analytics from local search partnerships that show actual calls, driving directions, and website visits that resulted from local searches.
- Branded vs Unbranded Searches – Among Chatmeter’s latest features, including integration with Google My Business and Facebook’s Analytics, marketers can now access each location’s specific reviews across each search and social platform. This depth of analytics often provides brands with telling insights. While many major brands believe consumers search and find them based on their branded name and products alone, often the opposite is true, requiring a greater investment from brands around local search.
Real-Time Review Response Improves Traffic and Lead Conversions
“What a time saver. Responding to reviews is now so easy! And the responses are now archived in Chatmeter,” said Tamara De La Fuente, Digital Marketing Specialist at Nolan Real Estate. “As a digital marketer, having the ability to view real-time analytics from Google is key to our success in this space. Having one-click access to our insights lets us improve our SEO/SEM strategy to get even more lead conversions.”
As the vast majority of consumers (80.7%) use online reviews to influence purchase decisions, it’s imperative businesses and retailers respond to reviews as part of an effective sales strategy, not just a customer relations strategy. By responding to reviews swiftly – or in real-time, as made possible with Chatmeter’s platform – brands can improve local search rankings, leading to stronger foot traffic and sales, while demonstrating to customers that their feedback is valued.
Through Chatmeter’s dashboard, brands such as Dickey’s BBQ, Kohl’s, and Sears continue to see a positive correlation between responding to reviews and increasing Google local search rankings, which drives further foot traffic and sales. The implementation of these features strengthens Chatmeter’s position as the number one solution for all large enterprises and agencies’ local brand management needs.
“These upgrades have helped us get that much closer to our goal of completing the industry attribution challenge of associating online/mobile searching to actual purchases,” says Collin Holmes, CEO and Founder of Chatmeter. “We started with rankings, but with the performance analytics from our partners, we can show that an increase in rankings from the work we do with our clients is now resulting in direct leads and new business through an increase in calls and directions to their stores. The value of our service (and the client's ROI) is being shown directly in the platform.”
This momentum comes on the heels of the company’s recently launched AI technology, Chatmeter Pulse, a sentiment analysis engine that helps businesses understand first-hand what their customers are experiencing so they can improve the customer experience, products, marketing messaging and operations.
About Chatmeter
Chatmeter (www.chatmeter.com) helps enterprise retail brands and agencies managing multiple locations increase their revenue. Since being the first Local Reputation platform in 2009, they now analyze and improve over 1,500,000 storefronts for their reviews, rankings and listings.
They help retailers make a distinct impact in revenue by identifying several areas in their online presence that drives customers to choose their stores over competitors. Chatmeter takes this a step further with the only integrated local visibility rank tracker so you can measure ROI using the most complete local presence management platform in the world.
The benefit for the clients is complete online presence management simplified into a single dashboard. They also power a white-label reputation management dashboard for many agencies across the U.S.
Some clients include Sears, Verizon Wireless, Comcast, Aaron's, Kohl's, Bruegger's Bagels, Texas de Brazil, and Dickey's BBQ.