Why Most Brisbane Business Owners Are Flying Blind
You’ve probably spent a fair bit of money on a website, maybe some Google Ads, or a social media manager. You see some traffic coming in, but do you actually know why one person picks up the phone while ten others leave your site and never come back?
Most business owners look at their numbers and see a total mess. They see "hits" or "visitors," but they don't see the human beings behind those numbers. They don't see the tradie in Chermside who looked at their services page three times before finally calling, or the mum in Carindale who clicked an ad, got distracted by the kids, and forgot you existed.
Following the "customer journey" is just a fancy way of saying: tracking how people find you and what makes them eventually give you money.
If you don't understand this path, you are throwing money at the wall and hoping it sticks. In this guide, I’m going to show you how to see exactly where you’re losing people and how to fix it so you get more bookings and more sales.
The Reality: People Don't Buy on the First Click
I’ve worked with dozens of Brisbane businesses—from electricians in Morningside to boutique law firms in the CBD. The biggest mistake they all make? Expecting every dollar spent on an ad to result in an immediate sale.
In the real world, it rarely works like that. A customer might: 1. See your Facebook post while waiting for a coffee. 2. Google your business name two days later to check your reviews. 3. Click a Google Ad because they forgot your website address. 4. Finally call you a week later when the problem gets worse.
If you only look at that last click, you’ll think the Google Ad did all the work and the Facebook post was a waste of money. That’s how you end up cutting the very things that are actually feeding your business. Often, your marketing data is lying to you because it only shows you the very last thing someone did, not the whole story.
Step 1: Identify the "Leaky Buckets" in Your Business
Before you spend another cent on ads, you need to know where people are dropping out. Think of your sales process like a pipe. If you pour 1,000 people in the top and only 2 come out the bottom as customers, you don't need more people—you need to fix the holes in the pipe.
The "Drive-By" Visitor
These are people who land on your home page and leave within seconds. Why it happens: Your site loads too slow, it looks rubbish on a phone, or they can’t immediately see that you solve their specific problem. The Fix: Make sure your phone number is at the very top and your main service is clear in the first three seconds.The "Window Shopper"
These people look at your pricing or service pages but don't enquire. Why it happens: You haven't given them enough trust. No reviews, no photos of your actual work, or no clear "next step." The Fix: Add three recent customer testimonials and a big button that says "Get a Fast Quote."The "Ghoster"
These people fill out your contact form but never book. Why it happens: You took too long to call them back, or your follow-up was unprofessional. The Fix: Set up an automatic text message that goes to them the second they hit submit.Step 2: Stop Looking at Vanity Numbers
I get frustrated when I see agencies sending reports to small business owners filled with "impressions" and "reach." Who cares? You can't pay your mortgage with impressions.
You need to focus on the path to the bank. Most of what you see in a standard Google Analytics setup is junk. In fact, GA4 is often lying because the default settings aren't tracked to your actual business goals, like phone calls or form completions.
What you should track instead: Phone Call Starts: How many people clicked the "Call Now" button on their mobile? Form Completions: How many people actually sent an enquiry?
- High-Value Page Views: How many people looked at your "Request a Quote" page vs just reading a blog post?
Step 3: Map the Path for a Brisbane Local
Let’s look at a real scenario. We worked with a local pest control business. They thought their SEO was failing because their "blog" traffic didn't buy anything.
When we actually looked at the path people took, we found that people would read a blog post about "How to tell if you have termites," leave the site, and then come back via a direct search for the business name three days later to book an inspection.
Because we tracked that journey, we realised the blog was actually their biggest money-maker—it just didn't look like it at first glance. If they had stopped writing those articles, their phone would have stopped ringing a month later.
Step 4: Quick Wins You Can Do This Week
You don't need a degree in data science to get better results. Here are three things you can do right now:
1. Check Your Site on Your Own Phone
Open your website on your phone right now. Can you click your phone number with your thumb? Does the page load in under 3 seconds? If not, you are losing at least 30% of your potential customers before they even read your name.2. Set Up a "Thank You" Page
When someone fills out your contact form, don't just show a little text box that says "Message Sent." Redirect them to a new page that says "Thank You - We’ll call you within 2 hours." This makes it incredibly easy to track exactly how many people reached the end of the journey.3. Ask Every Caller: "How did you first hear about us?"
This is low-tech but high-impact. Sometimes people will say "I saw your ute in Indooroopilly," but then they Googled you to find the number. This helps you understand which of your "offline" efforts are driving "online" actions.Step 5: What is a Waste of Money?
I’ll be blunt: spending thousands on high-end "attribution software" or complex dashboards is a waste of money for 95% of small businesses. You don't need a NASA command centre to run a plumbing business or a hair salon.
You also shouldn't get bogged down in benchmarks that are bullshit. Just because some "industry average" says you should have a 5% conversion rate doesn't mean anything for your specific shop in Brisbane. Your only benchmark should be: "Am I making more money this month than I did last month?"
How Long Until You See Results?
If you fix the "leaky buckets" I mentioned above, you can see more phone calls within days.
If you are setting up proper tracking to see the whole customer journey, it usually takes about 30 to 60 days to gather enough data to make smart decisions. You need enough people to go through the system so you can see the patterns.
Summary: Your Action Plan
1. Simplify your site: Make it dead easy for a person on a phone to contact you. 2. Fix your tracking: Make sure you are counting actual leads (calls/forms), not just "visitors." 3. Look for the gaps: Where are people leaving? Is it the home page? The pricing page? Fix those first. 4. Stop overcomplicating: You want more customers, not more spreadsheets.
Running a business in Brisbane is tough enough without guessing where your next customer is coming from. When you understand the journey your customers take, you stop guessing and start growing.
Want to stop guessing and start getting more leads? At Local Marketing Group, we specialise in helping Brisbane businesses fix their tracking and find those "leaky buckets." We don't do fluff, and we don't do jargon—we just help you get more customers.
Contact Local Marketing Group today and let’s get your phone ringing.