Getting found on Google
What Happens Over Text Still Counts as Data
Learn to track by hand what text conversations hide, so you don't touch or shut down something that's actually working.
You check your auto shop's website analytics and this month's visits are almost the same as last month's. But you've closed more appointments than ever: the phone won't stop, people text you, ask for a price, send a photo of the car, request a slot for Thursday. If you only count what the dashboard shows, the business looks stalled. It isn't: the part that matters most happened on a channel the dashboard never sees.
The problem isn't that you have too few visits. The problem is measuring the whole business with a ruler that only measures half of it.
The data you can see and the data you can't
A website counts what happens inside it: how many people show up, which pages they look at, which button they click. When someone taps Text Us, that click does get logged, like any other click on the page. What happens after that click doesn't: the conversation, the price you gave, whether it turned into an appointment. All of that happens inside a messaging app your website dashboard doesn't see and can't see.
That doesn't mean it isn't happening or that it doesn't count. It means you have to count it separately, because nobody else is going to count it for you, and because if you don't, that part of the business stays invisible even to you.
What you actually can count
There are two things you can measure, and they're different. The first is how many people reach your door: the number of clicks on the Text Us button, which your dashboard already counts like any other click on the page. That number tells you whether the website is convincing people to take the first step.
The second is what happens once that door opens, and you have to count that yourself, by hand, with a note on your phone or a notepad by the register. You don't need a complicated system. You need the habit of jotting down a number at the end of the day.
- 1Count conversations, not messages
At the end of the day, write down one number: how many new conversations came in by text. No need to count individual messages, just separate threads. - 2Mark how each one ended
When it wraps up, jot down one word: appointment, sale, priced-and-gone-quiet, or a question the website already answered. - 3Add it up once a week
On Sunday, count how many of those conversations turned into a sale or an appointment. That percentage is your texting close rate. - 4Compare it month to month
If one month you change the button text or the price shown on the site, watch whether that rate goes up or down. That's where you see the effect, not in the visit count.
What keeps coming up over text should change the website
If five people a week ask you the same question by text, your hours, your price, that question should already be on the website, not just in your inbox. Not so you stop talking to people, but so whoever reaches you by text already has the basics, and the conversation is shorter and closes faster.
That list of repeated questions is, without anyone pointing it out, the most useful data texting gives you. It tells you what's missing from your website before anyone brings it up in a meeting.
- You know the click on the Text Us button is the only trace the website leaves of that sale
- You have a way to track by hand how many conversations close and how many stall at a question
- You know repeated questions over text are the list of what to add to the website next
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Build my site freeIf you sell on WhatsApp, here is the guide to build a website that takes payments on WhatsApp.
