Local search is the clearest case of a question you cannot answer from your own desk. Every signal that personalises a result is a signal you cannot switch off convincingly.
What to put in the public brief
- The country and cities you need
- That screenshots are required
- Roughly how many searches
- Whether they need to be on mobile, desktop, or either
Keep the brand name and the exact search terms private. A public brief naming both tells anyone reading the marketplace which brand is worried about which query.
What to put in the private instructions
Give the exact search terms, one per line
Paraphrasing changes results, so leave no room for it.
Say whether to search logged out
And on which device. "Logged out, on mobile, from your usual connection" is a repeatable condition; "search normally" is not.
Ask for the full visible screen, not a rank
Screenshot the map pack and the first screen of results. A worker reporting "you are third" has already interpreted; a screenshot lets you interpret yourself.
Ask for their city and rough neighbourhood
Local results vary within a city, and a result from one suburb is not the city's result.
Proof worth requiring
Ask for
Screenshots of each search, plus the city, the device and the time. Time matters more here than in most tasks, because local results move through the day.
Do not ask for
Any interaction with the listings. Clicks, calls and direction requests are ranking signals, and a campaign that generates them is manipulating the thing it was meant to measure.
When this task type is the wrong tool
If you want ongoing rank monitoring, a rank-tracking tool is cheaper and more consistent, and this is the wrong shape for it. Use this when you need to see the actual screen once, in places you cannot reach.
If what you need is a visit rather than a search, that is a mystery shopping brief and it prices differently.