Yelp Leads vs Google Leads: Which Follow Up Wins for Trades

Key Takeaways

• A Google lead and a Yelp lead are not the same person, so they should never get the same first text.
• Google's own help page says that as of July 31, 2024, chat and quote requests are gone from your Business Profile. A Google lead is now a phone call and nothing else.
• Yelp's own page says a customer who messages you can send the same request to other related businesses. A Yelp lead typed to a room, and you're one of the replies.
• The Google follow up proves a human exists and offers one time. The Yelp follow up repeats the job back and moves her to a booking form you own.
• HighLevel's attribution panel can't see a phone call. Stamp the lead source in the workflow, or you'll read your numbers wrong and switch off the channel that's feeding you.

Two leads came in this morning. Same trade, same town, same job. One of them rang your phone. The other one typed you a message, and Yelp offered to send that exact message to your competitors while she was writing it.

Send both of those people the same text and you lose one of them. Usually not the one you'd guess.

That's the build in the newest episode of The Trade Stack on our channel, "Yelp leads against Google leads: which follow up wins." We set up marketing automation for San Jose and Bay Area trades on HighLevel, and this post is the written version: one pipeline, two sources, two different first texts, and the reason each one is written the way it is. Same honest note as the video. The build runs on a training demo account and every app screen in the episode is drawn, not captured, so no customer data shows up anywhere.

Google quietly changed what a Google lead is

This is for anybody getting leads from more than one place and answering all of them the same way.

Here's the part almost nobody noticed. Google used to put a chat box on your listing, and it used to let people request a quote. Both are gone. Google's own Business Profile help page says that as of July 31, 2024, chat and call history are no longer available in your profile, and customers can no longer request quotes there.

So what does a Google lead do now? He calls you. That's the only way in. A Google lead is a phone ringing. A Yelp lead is somebody typing. Different person, different moment, different first message.

Chapter one: the two doors

Door one is Google. He searched for a plumber, saw your listing and pressed the number. In that moment he's talking to you and nobody else. Your number is sitting in his recent calls. He probably hasn't looked at anybody else yet.

Door two is Yelp. She typed what she needed into a box. And Yelp's own page for business owners says that when somebody sends you a direct request from your Yelp Page, they're also given the option to send that same request to other related businesses. So she isn't talking to you. She's talking to a room, and you're one of the voices in it.

Your check takes two minutes. Open your last twenty leads and write one word next to each one: ring, or typed. Mostly rings? Your problem is answering the phone, and the missed call build comes first. Mostly typed? Your problem is speed against other companies, and that's chapter three. Can't tell which is which? You already found the gotcha at the bottom of this post.

One more thing. These two don't need the same speed out of you. The ring isn't racing anybody. The typed one is.

Chapter two: the Google follow up

This build is short because the lead is easy. He dialed the number on your listing, so the trigger is a call.

HighLevel has a Call Status trigger that fires when a call reaches a status: busy, cancelled, voicemail, completed or not answered. It also filters on direction, so you can catch incoming calls only. Point it at not answered and voicemail.

Then Missed Call Text Back sends the reply from the number he actually dialed. Same workflow, one more action: Create/Update Opportunity, which carries a field called Opportunity Source. Type Google into it. Now the card on your board knows where it came from.

Your check is to read the text out loud before a stranger gets it. He dialed and got nothing, so the text has two jobs: prove a human exists, and give him a time. Name the business, name the line he called, offer one slot. Something like: "Sorry we missed you, this is Ray at Ray's Plumbing, you called the shop line. I've got tomorrow at 8 or tomorrow at 2. Which one?"

That's it. Don't ask him what he needs. He told you by calling. And don't send him a form link. He picked up a phone on purpose.

Chapter three: the Yelp follow up, and the clock everyone can see

Yelp is a different sport, because Yelp is timing you in public. Your response time sits on your page, where customers see it before they message you.

Yelp's support page explains how it's worked out. It's the median time you took to answer new messages over the last 30 days, and it doesn't count after hours, which Yelp defines as 6pm to 8am. Read that again. The ten hours they score you on, 8am to 6pm, are the exact ten hours you're up a ladder.

So this build has one job: get her off Yelp and onto a channel you own. Reply in Yelp with two lines and a link. The link is a booking form, and when she fills it out the form fires the workflow. Same pipeline as the Google lead. Opportunity Source says Yelp.

Your check is the first line, and it's the opposite of the Google one. She already typed what she needs, so don't ask again. Repeat it back: "Hi Dana, water heater, no hot water since Sunday, got it. I can quote that today." Then two questions and a link with real times on it.

The part people skip: you have to be early, because she sent that to a room. Decide who answers Yelp between 8 and 6 and put it on a person, not a hope. If that person is nobody, turn messages off in your Yelp settings until it's somebody. Your response rate is on that page too.

The gotcha: attribution can't see a phone call

Save this one. It makes smart people cancel the wrong thing.

Every contact in HighLevel has an attribution panel, first and latest attribution, bottom right of the record. It looks like it answers the question "where did this lead come from." It doesn't.

HighLevel's own help page lists the four things that record attribution: a form or survey submission, a calendar booking, the chat widget once someone submits their details, and an order form. Look at that list again. No phone call.

So every Google lead, the guy who dialed straight off your listing, lands with that panel empty. Go by the panel and you'll decide Google doesn't work for you, and you'll switch off the thing that's actually feeding you. That's why both builds above stamp Opportunity Source inside the workflow that let the lead in.

Why This Matters for Bay Area and San Jose Businesses

Trades around here pull work from both places. Plenty of homeowners in San Jose, Campbell and Los Gatos still start on Yelp, and plenty more just tap the number on Google Maps. If you answer both the same way, one of them always gets the wrong message.

And most owners here are on a job site during exactly the hours Yelp scores. That's the whole case for marketing automation in San Jose for a small crew: the Google caller gets a real text from the line he dialed, the Yelp request gets an answer fast enough to matter, and the source on every card is true when you sit down to decide where to spend.

Practical Steps

1. Tag your last twenty leads as ring or typed so you know which build to do first.
2. Build a Call Status trigger for incoming calls that end not answered or in voicemail.
3. Add Missed Call Text Back so the reply comes from the number he dialed.
4. Add Create/Update Opportunity with Opportunity Source set to Google.
5. Write the Google text: business name, the line he called, one or two time slots. No questions, no form link.
6. Build a booking form for Yelp leads and a workflow that fires on submission, with Opportunity Source set to Yelp.
7. Write the Yelp reply: repeat her job back, say when you can quote it, add the booking link.
8. Put a named person on Yelp messages from 8am to 6pm, or turn Yelp messaging off until you have one.
9. Stop reading lead sources off the attribution panel. Read Opportunity Source instead.

Watch Yelp Leads Against Google Leads

Final Thoughts

Google is a ring, and a ring gets a fast human and one time slot. Yelp is a typed message that went to a room, so it gets repeated back with a link, inside the ten hours Yelp actually scores. Both land in one pipeline, and both get their source stamped by the workflow that let them in, never by a panel that can't see a phone call.

Both workflows, both first texts word for word, the Opportunity Source setting and the Yelp reply are free at optechsol.llc/setup.

Rather have it set up for you? On Point Tech Solutions does marketing automation for San Jose and Bay Area businesses out of Los Gatos. You own what we build. We do it for you, or teach your team with an SOP so they run it themselves.

Want to build this yourself? Join the On Point Tech Academy. It's free, and we build live every Tuesday and Thursday.