Want to drive in-store traffic at your business location? Are you interested in increasing your store visit conversions?

If you answered yes to both questions, here is a short primer on how you can advertise your business locally. 

The best place to start is to think like a customer. When you search for local stores, services or restaurants,  which ones are you more likely to prefer? Most often, we’ll choose the closest location because it saves time.

What Is A Google Local Campaign?

A Google local campaign is a campaign type at Google Ads that aims to reach local customers and clients. This campaign type makes possible ad placements across Google partners’ websites and multiple platforms, including Google Search Network, Google Display Network, Google Maps and YouTube.

Create A Local Campaign

Some businesses underrate local campaigns. However, they are super simple to set up, and they are one of the best campaign choices for boosting local store visits and promotions. 

Today, we’ll share how to set up local campaigns, including search ads. Getting these ads up and running doesn’t require lots of effort or advanced digital marketing experience. Follow these simple steps and start advertising locally today:

1. First and foremost, prepare ad assets for your local campaign. You will need to have:

• headlines (up to five, character limit - 30 (including spacing));
• descriptions (up to five, character limit - 60 (including spacing));
• call-to-action (up to five, character limit - 11 (including spacing));
• at least one video or image (your company logos and some images featuring your products or services, for example).

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Google Ads local campaigns are responsive and will serve on multiple platforms with  dynamically generated ads based on creative assets you provide during campaign creation.

2. For adding location to your ads, you’ll need to have claimed your Google My Business account. If you don’t have one, make sure to create it for your business. You can learn more about the benefits of Google My Business profile and how to set up a new account here.
   
   
3. Go to your Google Ads account, and click the blue button with the plus sign. Select “New Campaign.”

4. The default bidding strategy for Google ads local campaigns is to maximize conversion value. We’d recommend using that setting since it will automatically maximize the number of potential customers who might want to call or visit your business. 

5. After selecting a bid strategy, you can choose conversion actions for the campaign that are optimized for your business - store visits, driving directions or call clicks (you have multiple options). 

6. Next, in the ad group and ad creation section, you can set up ads for this campaign by entering headlines, descriptions, call-to-actions and uploading creative assets. Please note that you can’t upload a video directly to Google Ads. It should be live on YouTube. Also, the more creative options you have - the more combinations Google can deliver and optimize for performance.
   
   
7. Review your campaign, and if you’re happy with how everything looks, press save. 

If you’re more of a visual person and prefer following the video instructions, Google Ads Help Center has a very comprehensive tutorial on how to create a local campaign which you can watch.

Remember that in 2022, Google local and shopping campaigns will be upgraded to Performance Max campaigns. To learn more about it, please check out Google’s blog.

If you have any questions about paid advertisements, feel free to reach out to us to assist you with creating efficient local ad campaigns for your business.