I manage several Google My Business accounts for my clients. Google My Business provides data about how many visits the business has received, as well as how many people have seen the local business listing. This data is available for verified businesses when they log into their Google My Business account. The Insights data is delayed by a few days, but is available in a weekly, monthly, and quarterly view, both on the Google My Business app and through a web browser. Recently, however, Google has begun sending businesses an email with some data about the number of clicks that they’ve been receiving on their listing, especially on the posts they’ve been making.

As a verified owner of one particular local business, I received an email from Google about the number of clicks I got on a recent post:

I totally understand that Google My Business is trying to encourage local businesses to make posts. The more they post, the more clicks they can get on those posts (if there are no posts you can’t get the clicks). But is it really necessary or even appropriate to send an email to a business owner and congratulate them for getting ONE CLICK on one of their posts?

Granted, I really do encourage local businesses to make posts on their Google My Business listings. Offers, discounts, and updates are great reasons to post, and they can lead to more visibility for your business. However, I consider it kind of “demeaning” for Google to send an email to a local business if they only get one click.

I could see if it were to be 25 clicks, or 100 clicks. But one click?