How to Run a Local Campaign

What are local campaigns?

Local campaigns are a type of campaign you can run on Google Ads. Unlike other campaigns, this one isn’t meant to lead someone to your website – it’s meant to lead them to your physical store. 

Own an art gallery? Have people visit to view your collection. Own a cabinetry business? Have people view your selection and get a free estimate. Local campaigns help get people to visit or call your business.

Who should use local campaigns?

If you have a brick and mortar store or an office, local campaigns are for you. For example, if you own a bakery, you would want people to visit to buy some pastries. You may include a headline like “Try Our Famous Blueberry Scones” to entice people to grab some. If a potential customer is searching for bakeries near them, there’s a chance that your business will pop up.

Local campaigns operate on the basis of making the information search as easy as possible for potential customers. Instead of having to look for your website and scroll to the bottom of the page for your store location and phone number, potential customers can click the “directions” or “call” button on a local ad.

That’s me, I want more visitors! How do I set up a local campaign?

To set up a local campaign strategy, you first have to select the location you want to promote in the ad. You can do this through your Google My Business account or select an affiliate location. 

Affiliate locations are stores that might not be owned by you, but still sell your products. For instance, say you make homemade

 beef jerky. You don’t have your own brick and mortar store, so you sell your beef jerky at Bill’s General Store. You mark Bill’s

 General Store as your affiliate location, and someone searching “homemade beef jerky” on Google will receive directions so they can find it.

After selecting your location, you put in headlines, descriptions, images, and a video. This is also the time where you can set your budget. For one of the first clients we ran a local campaign for, a local pool supply company, we used images they provided and made a video with them.

Additionally, this particular company has multiple locations. For that, we made an ad group for each location in order to target potential customers more efficiently. By splitting the locations into different ad groups, we were able to look at performance for each and determine what is working well.

How do local campaigns work?

Once your local campaign is set up, it is ready to be sent out to people searching for your product. Local ads, similar to various other Google ads, can show up in a variety of places such as:

• Google Maps
• Google Search Network
• Youtube
• Google Display Network
• Business Profiles
• Gmail

Google also uses machine learning to combine the headlines, descriptions, images, and videos into great ads that will influence potential customers to seek out your business. There is also a button to visit your website for more information.

All in all, local campaigns are a great way to increase foot traffic for your business. They are easy to set up, convenient for potential customers, and will expose your business across various networks.

Google Ads Local Actions Conversions

Google Ads local actions conversions are tracked whenever a potential customer interacts with campaigns directed towards

 your physical store. This can happen through a variety of ad interactions including:

• Using a “Call” button to contact the store
• Getting directions
• Visiting a landing page for a location-based service
• Engaging with a location on your website by either sharing or saving it
• Ordering a location-based service
• Uses a menu link on a location-based ad

It is important to note that Google Ads Local Actions conversions only work on businesses approved under Google’s set criteria. This excludes ads based on healthcare, religion, sexual content, and children.

Using conversions tracking is another great way to understand your audience better and digitally track how your business is performing through different ads. 

Contact Us to Set Up a Local Campaign

Are you ready to bring on the customers? We would love to help you bring more traffic to your store! Contact us today to start your local campaigns at (413) 626-5122, or contact Ben at [email protected].