Google Ads Local Campaigns

Google Local Campaigns is a very specific campaign objective within Google Ads that really tries to push foot traffic and offline sales. Think about users looking for directions or wanting to call your business. So, it may not be for everybody, but it’s a great way to reach people who may be very close to your brick-and-mortar locations. So, we’re going to cover a few things within this video. First, we’re going to go over one of the three requirements that is going to be needed to be eligible to run local campaigns. We’re then going to go over where your ads could appear on several of the Google properties.

Next, we’ll how this is a pretty machine learning driven campaign type. And while it seems like we may not be able to control a lot of things, the ad assets and creative that we use is still something that advertisers can control. So, we’ll run over all of those elements and then, we’ll close out on some of the local conversion actions that you will be able to track for your local campaigns.

Before we even start setting up your first Google Local Campaign, you either need to have one active location extension, one active affiliate location extension, or you would need to have your Google My Business account linked with your Google Ads account. I have one account open, it’s easy to find out if you have one of those three requirements active. First, head on over to Ads and Extensions and then we want to go down and choose Extensions. And just to save some time and a bunch of blurred out scrolling, I’ve already gone down below and found the location extension. In this account, we already have it set up.

So, I knew we were okay from the requirement standpoint, but I’m going to click on this link just to show you a little bit more information. Sorry that I have to blur a bunch of things out, but we already have a location extension association connected for this account. And then down below, there are four separate locations for this franchise and we can get stats on each of the locations. If this is brand new to you, you can go and click the Blue Plus and here’s where you can create some new location extensions and that will be simple enough.

For those of you interested in creating new affiliate location extensions, head back to the very top of your extensions view. Click on the Blue Plus button and underneath location extension, you will see affiliate location extensions. If you go up, you can look at your general retailers list. Choose your specific country and then you can start researching a bunch of chains where your product may be sold. Just in the United States, we see over 1,200 options so that a ton. I’m going to cancel out of this because this particular account doesn’t have products. They’re more of a walk-in service.

If you are looking for information on how to link Google My Business with Google Ads, you can begin that process when you’re setting up the regular location extensions that I first covered, so I apologize if I didn’t mention that. Now that you have either connected one extension or your Google My Business account to your Google Ads account, you are now eligible to start creating Google Ads local campaigns. The goal of a Google Local Campaign is to make it easier for advertiser to promote their products or services across a variety of Google’s properties. And yes, this is all going to be done within one campaign. So, let me show you some examples of where your ads could appear within a Google Local Campaign.

One option is Google Maps. I have it zoomed in on the Chicago area. If you see the search bar in the upper left-hand corner, I just search for flowers and I searched this area. So, the first two results that we get are ads. You’ll notice that the first result has a square icon as well as the second. These little square icons are different than the typical pin icon that we see on the map. If I hover over any of the promoted results within the maps, it clearly states when the business information pops up that this is an Ad. And if I click on it, not only do I get more results but I get more information about the business where I can click and go to the website, call the phone number, get directions, and more.

This is another example now on Google Search. I just typed in daycare near me and the first result we see in the local pack is an ad. I can also get directions, visit the website, click on the phone number, and if I click on the ad from the Google.com search results, it open up maps again with more information from the company’s Google My Business profile. Now, besides Google Maps and Google Search, your local campaigns could have placements on YouTube, your Google My Business profile and in the Google Display Network, let’s hop back into Google Ads and we’ll walk through the step-by-step setup of a Google Local Campaign.

I’m back on the main overview screen. So, I’m going to click on new campaign and with every campaign we create in Google Ads, we need to select a specific campaign objective. In this case, we want local store visits and promotions because at the very bottom of this box, we see the campaign type is local. And if I scroll down a little bit, there is only one campaign type, so I don’t have to select anything else and then you get to choose your specific locations you want to use for this campaign.

I mentioned earlier, this account doesn’t have affiliate locations but that is an option so we’re going to use our business locations. When we’re in the location extension view, I had to blur out the four-row of the four locations this business has. So, by default, we do get all locations. I could target all four locations which that is the option I’m going to take. But if I move over, we can choose specific locations and to do that, you need to create a location group. So, there are few already created by default, there’s all locations. And in this particular account, we already have a location group created for just two of the locations.

If I want to go ahead and create another location group with just three of the locations, click on the New Location Group option, select the three locations that I want Save that new location group and then I could select it off of this list to use for this campaign. But to make things easier, I’m going to go back up and choose all locations again. And then we can go down and click continue. I already went ahead and renamed my campaign. I’m going to leave the languages English. So, now I can go and select my budget and next we get to bidding. As it says right in the middle in the blue box, the only bid strategy we get for local campaigns is maximize conversion value.

So, if you look at the next box below for Campaign Optimization, you would want to select the conversion actions to opt towards. And the more actions you select, the more information you’re giving Google to optimize towards the maximum conversion value bid strategy. This account is not eligible for store visits but if your account is, that box will automatically be checked when you’re creating this local campaign. If you remember in the Google Maps and Google Search examples I showed up before. When I clicked on those ads, it gave me options to call the company as well as click on driving directions. So, those were going to leave and it’s going to mark a value of $1.

Now before we move on, you may be thinking, wait a minute, how come I don’t get to pick my location targeting for this campaign? Well, Google is trying to make it easier for you. When you’re creating your locations in your Google My Business account or your location extensions, you’re pretty much giving an exact pinpoint of where that location is. So, local campaigns will use a radius targeting for your locations or your affiliates locations. And the radius is going to vary based upon the user’s location, the user’s typical preference of travel distance. Isn’t that crazy? The population density of where that user may be searching from, that’s depth going to impact how far a user may be willing to go as well as other competitors within the area.

I’ll repeat, there’s a lot of machine learning involved with this campaign type. Because machine learning will also control your bid optimizations, the ad placements, and when we get to the ad creation portion, the combination of all your assets. But after campaign optimization, we do see start and end dates and if we click on additional settings, you do see an option for a product feed. Again, this account is a services one, so I can’t import anything here. But if you are local store with products to sell and you have a Google Merchant Center, you can sync that up and there we see the feed options but I just have to close this up.

Alright, next I’m going to move on. Next, we’re going to set up the ad group for the local campaigns. I already inputted the name and we pretty much head into the ad assets. I’m going to walk through everything first before I enter it in because everything, I enter is just going to have to be blurred out anyways. So, first, you need your final URL, pretty straightforward. Next, you will use your display path. Remember, one of the placements could be Google search results and just like a typical text ad, you get two display pass, 15 characters each.

The next asset components are going to be similar especially if you’ve already been running Responsive Search Ads or Responsive Display Ads, we can add up to five headlines up to 30 characters each we can add up to 5 descriptions 60 characters each. And then we can add up to five call to action text and those will be 11 characters each. Very odd number of characters, but that’s what we get if I keep scrolling down. Next, we have images and logos we need at least one image and at least one logo image. Now for your main image, we get up to 20 and then you can add up to five logo variants. And then below that, it’s an optional element to add at least one video but we do get to go up to 20.

The easiest way to add those videos is to collect YouTube URLs from your YouTube channel and then, you’ll be able to paste in those URLs and then select which ones you may want to use for this local campaign ad asset. So, I’m going to fill out this ad asset and then jump ahead so we can look at the ad previews to get an idea of how they may look in each of the placements.

Okay, here we go. Again, I apologize I have to blur out a ton here hopefully you can still get a picture of what your ads could look like. So, the first preview we see is for Google Maps. Initially, there’s the pin. The logo I selected is within that pin that is blurred out but when a user clicks on it, a tab will open. This preview is mobile but it’ll open on desktop as well. Then, you see some generic grey boxes. This is what Google has is just as a placeholder but that will be the business information. We see the star reviews and other generic information part of the My Business Account and then the ad portion underneath. I have the headline and the description blurred out, that’s one of the images I selected and then one of the call to actions I created.

Let’s move on over to display. But I’m going to highlight one of the sections that I’m blurring out and calling out what each of it is. This first part up top here is actually one of our YouTube video URLs that we pasted into the asset fields. But it also could be one of your images. Next is our business name. Remember we did not have to add that in before. To the right of that is our company logo. Then below we get one of our ad headlines. Below that is one of the descriptions, and then we see the map information that is pulling from our location extensions and business information.

Let’s hop to the next example. Now, we see Google search. There’s the generic business information that’s pulled from your account, one of the images that we use in our assets. We see that images brought back down to the text portion and then the headline and description. In this case, on a mobile device, it’s too small so we’re not seeing any of the URL display pass, but that would be right here potentially on a desktop ad. And then here’s what the ad would look like on YouTube. This is YouTube, there’s the video but then there’s the logo I added as well as one of the headlines that we inputted within the ad asset fields.

Using different ad sets, potentially different headlines, different images, different videos will still give you some way to test what will work best and resonate with the users who see your local ads. But if things look good, we can scroll down and click save and continue. It says our campaign is ready, so we can continue to the campaign. I just created this campaign. I don’t have any stats and also the date ranges in the past. Once your local campaign launches, you can go in and edit a few things. We go in and click in this Ad Group. Here they take us to the Ad View. You can click on the pencil button to edit any portion of your ad assets.

If you want to change out a few different headlines that clearly are under performing, same thing with images and the videos, you can do that right here. I moved back to the main ad group view and then just like any other campaign, you can go ahead and change the columns to see whatever metrics are important for that particular ad group. As I mentioned before, I just created this cam so we’re not seeing anything yet. But if you start getting conversions on your local campaign, you will be able to segment your information. If you go down to Conversions and then Conversion Action, you’ll get information on how many people are looking for directions or clicking on the phone number if users have taken those actions within the date range you’re looking at.

And depending on what type of industry your account is in, here’s a view from Google Ads on what following local actions could be recorded within your local campaign. There are clicks to call, people looking for directions, web site visits, other engagements like sharing the location, and the last two are vertical specific. So, when submitting an order, you may see some order call-to-action buttons on certain business profiles whether that’s ordering a particular service or ordering food and then the bottom one menu views clearly for the restaurant industry. You can use that information when you’re segmenting your conversion actions to see if you need to optimize your campaign in any way or potentially give it more or less budget.

For the most part, that’s it for Google Local Campaigns. You can see it’s pretty hand off except for the asset elements and the location groups that you get to control. To be honest, we have seen mixed performance from these types of campaigns, but whether you’re a chain with multiple local locations or just a singular local shop. It is worth testing, because you don’t have to put a ton of budget towards it. If you have any questions about something I may not have covered within this video on Google Local Campaigns, please let us know in the comments below. But if you do decide to create a local campaign for your account, best of luck and I hope it works out for you.

Written by Joe Martinez