How to Connect Google My Business to Tableau

Getting your Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) data into Tableau is a great way to measure your local marketing performance. It lets you slice, dice, and view your local search data alongside your other key business metrics. This tutorial breaks down the practical methods to connect Google Business Profile to Tableau so you can start building insightful dashboards today.

Why Analyze Google Business Profile Data in Tableau?

Your Google Business Profile (GBP) is often the first impression a local customer has of your business. It's a goldmine of data on how people find you, what they do next, and how they perceive your brand. While Google's built-in analytics dashboard is useful for a quick glance, pulling that data into Tableau unlocks deeper analysis. You can:

Track Performance Over Time: Monitor trends in searches, views, and actions (website clicks, calls, direction requests) to see what’s working.
Combine Data Sources: Blend your GBP data with sales data from your CRM or website traffic from Google Analytics. Are those direction requests turning into actual sales?
Create Custom Dashboards: Build a dedicated local marketing dashboard for your team or stakeholders, focusing on the specific KPIs that matter most to your business.
Identify Customer Behavior: Understand which search terms customers are using to find you (branded, discovery, or direct) and see the breakdown of actions they take.

The main challenge? Tableau does not have a native, out-of-the-box connector for the Google Business Profile API. This means you need a workaround to bridge the gap. We'll cover the three most common methods, ranging from quick and manual to fully automated.

Method 1: Manual Export and Import (The "Free but Tedious" Approach)

This is the most straightforward method and requires no special tools - just a few minutes of your time. It’s perfect for a one-off analysis or if you only need to update your data infrequently.

Step 1: Export Your Data from Google Business Profile

First, you need to get the performance data out of your Google account.

Log into your Google Business Profile manager. If you manage multiple locations, select the one you want to analyze.
In the left-hand menu, navigate to Performance.
Set your desired date range. You can choose from presets like Last month, Last quarter, or set a custom range. Keep in mind you can only download data up to a period of about 18 months.
You'll see different charts for searches, profile views, and actions. For each set of data you want to export (e.g., searches, calls, bookings), you'll click the Download or export button, which is typically found near the report's title. Google is continually updating this UI, but it's usually straightforward.
This will download a .CSV or .XLSX file to your computer. You might need to do this for several different reports (e.g., one file for Views, another for Actions) to get a complete picture.

Step 2: A Quick Data Cleanup

Before pulling the file into Tableau, open it in Excel or Google Sheets. The exported files are generally clean, but it's good practice to:

Check that dates are formatted correctly.
Ensure numbers are formatted as numbers, not text.
Remove any summary rows at the top or bottom that could interfere with Tableau's headers.

Step 3: Connect to the File in Tableau

With your clean data file ready, importing it into Tableau is simple.

Open Tableau Desktop.
Under the Connect pane on the left, select either Microsoft Excel (for .xlsx files) or Text File (for .csv files).
Navigate to where you saved your file and open it.
Tableau will now show you the data in the Data Source tab. You can drag the sheet onto the canvas and begin building your visualizations.

Pros: Absolutely free, requires no technical skills, and is great for quick, ad-hoc reports.

Cons: Highly manual and time-consuming if done regularly. The data is static - it's only as current as your last export. If you want a dashboard that updates daily or weekly, this method will quickly become a major chore.

Method 2: Use a Spreadsheet as a Middleman (The "Semi-Automated" Approach)

This method involves getting your Google Business Profile data into a central Google Sheet or Excel file in the cloud, which then acts as a live data source for Tableau. This is the most popular solution for teams who want near-real-time data without the cost of enterprise-level tools.

The key here is automating the first part: getting GBP data into the sheet.

Step 1: Automatically Pipe GBP Data Into Google Sheets

Manually copying and pasting into a Google Sheet isn't much better than Method 1. The real advantage comes from using third-party connectors that live inside Google Sheets. Tools like Supermetrics, Mixed Analytics, or Coefficient offer Google Sheets add-ons specifically for this purpose. While each tool is slightly different, the general process is the same:

Install the Add-on: Go to the Google Workspace Marketplace, search for your chosen connector, and install it to your Google Sheets account.
Launch and Configure: Open a new Google Sheet, and launch the add-on from the Extensions menu.
Connect Your Google Account: You’ll be prompted to authorize the tool to access your Google Business Profile data. This is a safe and standard process using OAuth.
Build Your Query: An interface will pop up where you can select the specific GBP location, the metrics you want to pull (e.g., Views on Maps, Website Clicks, Direct Searches), and the dimensions to break it down by (e.g., Date).
Schedule Automatic Refreshes: This is the most crucial step. You can set the query to run automatically every day, every week, or even every hour. The connector will pull the latest data from the GBP API and append it to your Google Sheet without you lifting a finger.

Step 2: Connect Tableau to Your Google Sheet

Once your Google Sheet is set up and populating with data automatically, you can connect Tableau to it as a live source.

In Tableau Desktop, under the Connect pane, click on Google Sheets.
A browser window will open, asking you to sign in to the Google account associated with the sheet and grant Tableau permission to access it.
After authorizing, a list of your Google Sheets will appear. Find and select the one containing your GBP data and click Connect.
Your GBP data is now available in Tableau. You can publish your dashboard to Tableau Server or Tableau Cloud and configure it to refresh its data from the Google Sheet on a schedule, giving you an automated reporting workflow.

Pros: Creates a "set it and forget it" automated reporting system. More reliable and less manual than exporting CSVs. Keeps your data fresh and ready for analysis.

Cons: Typically requires a paid subscription to a third-party connector. The initial setup requires a bit more effort.

Method 3: Use a Dedicated ETL Tool (The "Most Robust" Approach)

For larger teams or businesses where GBP data is critical, a dedicated ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) tool provides the most scalable and powerful solution. These platforms (like Fivetran, Stitch, or Windsor.ai) are built to pull data from hundreds of different APIs - including Google Business Profile - and load it into a central location like a data warehouse (e.g., Google BigQuery, Snowflake) or directly into a BI tool.

Step 1: Choose and Configure Your ETL Platform

First, you select a provider that offers a Google Business Profile connector. The setup is generally straightforward and managed through their web interface.

Sign up for the ETL service.
Navigate to their list of data sources and select Google Business Profile.
Authorize the connection by logging into your Google account, similar to the other methods.
Select your data destination. This is typically a cloud data warehouse, but some tools offer a direct-to-Tableau connection. Let's assume you're using a warehouse like BigQuery.
Configure the replication frequency (e.g., sync every 6 hours).

The ETL tool handles all the heavy lifting: API authentication, pagination, rate limits, and any schema changes Google might make in the future. It extracts the raw data and places it in neatly organized tables in your warehouse.

Step 2: Connect Tableau to Your Data Warehouse

With your data cleanly organized and automatically updating in a data warehouse, the final step is incredibly simple. Tableau has powerful, high-performance native connectors for all major data warehouses.

In Tableau Desktop, under the Connect menu, select the connector for your data warehouse (e.g., Google BigQuery, Amazon Redshift, Snowflake).
Enter your connection credentials and point Tableau to the correct database and tables where your GBP data resides.
You can now leverage the full power of Tableau, combined with the performance of your data warehouse, to build complex and fast-loading dashboards.

Pros: The most reliable, scalable, and hassle-free method. It gives you raw, granular data and easily handles multiple GBP locations. It separates your data pipeline from your analysis, which is a best practice for any growing team's data operations.

Cons: The most expensive option, often with pricing based on data usage. It can be overkill if you only have one or two GBP locations with simple reporting needs.

What Should You Build Once the Data Is in Tableau?

Connecting the data is only half the battle. Now comes the fun part: visualization. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

Local Marketing KPI Dashboard: A high-level view with big numbers (sometimes called BANs for 'Big-Ass Numbers') for key metrics like Total Views, Total Searches, and Total Actions for the last 30 days.
Search Type Breakdown: A pie chart or bar chart showing the proportion of searches that are Branded (people searching your business name), Direct (people searching your address), and Discovery (people searching for you by category, product offering, or related services, e.g., "best pizza near me").
Customer Action Trends: A stacked area chart showing trends for Website clicks, Direction requests, and Phone calls so you can understand changing customer behavior based on how people are using your listing to get in touch with your business.
Views on Maps vs. Search: Use a dual-line chart to compare how many times your profile has appeared in traditional Google search results versus Google Maps over time. This can help highlight whether changes to your business profile content affect visibility on Google's distinct products and platforms.

Final Thoughts

Pulling your Google Business Profile data into Tableau opens up a world of analytical possibilities, giving you a much clearer picture of your local search impact. Whether you opt for a simple manual export, set up a semi-automated workflow with Google Sheets, or go all-in with an ETL tool, the key is choosing the method that matches your needs, resources, and technical comfort level.

The manual hurdles mentioned here highlight a common frustration in marketing - so much of our data lives in separate platforms. Logging into one tool, exporting files, and importing them somewhere else just to build a report takes time away from actual analysis. At Graphed, we remove this struggle. After a simple one-click connection to your data sources, you can ask for the information you need in plain English. Instead of building complex data pipelines, you can simply ask, "compare website clicks from my business profile vs. our paid search campaigns," and get a live, interactive chart instantly.