the new integrated me
I guess I should tell you right away that I got my new and first iPhone two weeks ago. Don’t worry though; I am not going to talk about it. We’re still in our honeymoon, so I couldn’t be objective. Sure, the bride already shows some drawbacks, but she’s a beauty.
I was in Quebec City last week on an engagement. I brought my wife along (the first one, that is), so she could enjoy the 400th anniversary celebrations (not ours of course, Quebec City’s). We were in a restaurant and were talking about making a reservation to another one for the next evening. Then something new in my life happened, and I shall relate it step by step:
1) Slide open the iPhone
2) Tap on Safari, and bring up Google
3) Enter the restaurant’s name and “quebec city”
4) Got this result at the top of the organic SERP (note that Google is suggesting the right spelling for “restaurant”, which I didn’t spell right in this example!):
# The beauty with the iPhone is that the phone number is clickable
5) Tap on the phone number
6) Phone rings
7) Make the reservation.
I must confess that, for a few seconds, I looked at my wife in awe (OK, she’s really is good looking); I had just done something I had never done in my life (and I suspect this is not the last time).
My phone call was a direct result of my organic search. I never clicked on the web site link though, which means that the restaurant’s web site analyst will not see that visit, not that organic search brought them business that night (he’s looking at his stats the day after this happened, remember). Well, of course, it was not really pure search, as I knew where I wanted to go, but just needed some contact info (Yellow Pages anyone?).
As analysts, how do we account for such a phenomenon? That “visit”, the actual one in the restaurant that is, left no trace on the web site, still originated from the internet. No data points to analyze; no real way to know, maybe just glad the manager renewed the listing of the number with Yellow Pages (!).
I think that in order to really account for those new consumer behavior patterns, we will need to finally start publishing web-only phone numbers. It is not expensive to do, and most carrier have usage reports for 800 lines. Sure, this will be harder for those who brand their phone number, but how important is it when it is shown in a search result, really? Unless Google finds a way to account for a click on a phone number when it’s done from a smartphone, and make it a part of your GA reports. That’d be very cool.
By the way, the whole experience at L’Initiale was memorable…
Jacques Warren on July 31st 2008 in Summary