Local Search Ads: Boosting Your Business in the Community

Welcome to our comprehensive guide on harnessing the power of “Local Foot Traffic with Local Search Ads.” In today’s highly competitive market, businesses constantly seek innovative ways to attract customers to their brick-and-mortar establishments. Local Search Ads provide a strategic edge by enabling you to target potential customers in your area, driving foot traffic, and increasing sales. In this blog, we will delve into the intricacies of Local Search Ads, unraveling tactics to help you connect with your local audience effectively. Whether a small business or a well-established enterprise, this guide is your key to dominating local searches and achieving unparalleled growth in your community. Let’s embark on this journey to boost your business and make your presence felt in the local landscape!

Best Local Foot Traffic with Local Search Ads

In today’s competitive business landscape, attracting local customers is essential for sustained success. Local Search Ads offer a potent marketing strategy, allowing businesses to target their target audience within specific geographic areas. By implementing these powerful ads effectively, you can boost foot traffic, increase sales, and establish a strong presence in your local community. In this blog, we’ll explore the fundamentals of Local Search Ads and equip you with the knowledge and tools to drive unparalleled growth for your business. Get ready to unlock the potential of Local Search Ads and take your local marketing efforts to new heights!

Location ad extension

Crafting compelling content demands consideration of “perplexity,” “burstiness,” and “predictability.” Perplexity gauges the intricacy of the text, comparing the diversity of sentences, and predictability measures the likelihood of anticipating the next sentence. Achieving the balance of these factors is vital.

When conversions largely stem from a physical storefront, including your store address in your advertisements becomes crucial. One effective way to do this is by utilizing a location ad extension, which prominently displays your store’s address within the ad. By taking this approach and incorporating your address into your AdWords campaigns, you instill a greater sense of trust in potential customers, as they can see your business as a tangible and reliable entity.

In a similar vein, a legal marketing agency can enhance visibility for law firms by deploying targeted local campaigns. Leveraging such specialized expertise ensures that the firm’s ads reach the relevant demographic, contributing to a higher rate of client engagement and acquisition.

Including a physical store in your ads imparts a sense of comfort and authenticity to prospective buyers, making them more inclined to purchase. To enable the location extension in your Google AdWords campaign, follow these simple steps:

• Navigate to the Google My Business homepage and click “Start Now.”
• Search for your business, and if it already exists, claim it.
• If you are still looking for your business, verify it with Google before proceeding to the next step.
• Once your Google My Business account and listing are live, head to your AdWords account to link the two together.
• Find the “Ads & Extensions” tab and click on it.
• Next, select “Extensions.”
• Click “Create Ad Extension.”

From the drop-down menu, choose “Location Extension,” you’ll be prompted to use your locations from your Google My Business account. Once completed, your location ad extension will be enabled, and your business location will be prominently showcased in your ads.

Promotion extension

You can develop simple marketing campaigns to attract more foot traffic to your store. By catering to the needs of mobile users, you can significantly increase your sales. Another effective method to boost local foot traffic is incorporating promotions into your online advertising campaigns.

A promotion ad extension is an excellent way to display your store’s current promotions directly within the ad. It lets you showcase enticing details, such as percentage discounts or special product prices. You can even include additional information, like promo codes or minimum order values, to entice potential customers further.

Using promotion extensions in your ads helps raise awareness of your deals and promotions, and you can customize the ad’s appearance based on your target audience, such as mobile users. You also have the flexibility to schedule promotions during periods of high-volume foot traffic, which can lead to higher click-through rates.

To add a promotion extension to your AdWords campaign, follow these simple steps:

• Sign into your Google AdWords account.
• Navigate to the ad extension drop-down menu, following the steps mentioned in Hack #1.
• This time, choose “Promotion Extension.”
• Set up your promotion by selecting the occasion from the drop-down (e.g., Mother’s Day promotion on flowers) and entering the promotion details, such as the type of discount, item, and website URL.
• Select the dates you want the promotion to run.
• Utilize the “advanced options” to target specific devices or times, optimizing your ads for store open hours and peak foot traffic periods.
• Save your promotion, and Google will review your ad. Once approved, it will go live.

Running AdWords promotions improves your ad’s relevance and quality score and increases the likelihood of your ideal customers seeing your promotions. You’ll attract more customers by creating more awareness of your in-store promotions.

It’s important to note that promotion extensions are available exclusively in the new AdWords interface. Google provides a Best Practices guide to help you optimize your ads and make the most of these innovations.

Click-to-text messages, e.g., instant communication with potential customers, are a powerful method to drive local foot traffic to your business. According to Google data, 65% of consumers consider messaging when scheduling in-person appointments or seeking information about products and services. The chatbot market value is projected to reach $1.25 billion by 2025, so the industry is expected to grow substantially.

A click-to-message extension, also known as a message extension, is invaluable for connecting with customers through text messages. By incorporating this link in your ad, customers can click to initiate a text conversation, book appointments, or seek further details about your offerings. This appreciatively converts phone call traffic into local foot traffic, granting customers an alternative way to communicate, enhancing their sense of control, and saving time for both parties.

To create a message extension in your campaigns, follow these steps:

• Sign in to your Google AdWords account.
• Navigate to the ad extension drop-down menu using the steps mentioned in Hack #1.
• Select “Message Extension.”
• Enter your business name and contact number.
• Add the message extension text and create an automated reply that customers will receive in their messaging app.
• AdWords will automatically generate an example of how your ad may look in a campaign and how the automated text will appear in their messaging app.
• Save your ad, and it will go through Google’s review process.

You can attract the right audience to your store or business by utilizing a message extension that facilitates appointment or consultation setups. Moreover, message reporting allows you to track performance insights of your click-to-message campaign, including the “Chat Rate,” indicating how often users initiate chats after viewing your ad.

Case studies have shown the efficacy of message extensions in lead generation. For instance, Maisie Harris, Chief Marketing Officer at LeadRival, found that their chat rate exceeded the conversion rate for online lead forms, suggesting that routing people through messaging improved lead volume. Similarly, Career Path Training Corp. achieved over 30% of received texts turning into qualified leads using a “Click Here to Text Us” message extension.

When incorporating click-to-message extensions into AdWords campaigns, targeting high-intent keywords and brand words can engage prospective customers and encourage them to get on a call directly. For lower-intent keywords, setting up a click-to-message extension that provides automated answers to their questions can be beneficial.

Also read: Productivity Tools that Will Help You Save Time and Cost.

Optimize ads during store open hours and high-traffic hours

One of the critical factors for successful advertising is ensuring that your ads lead to the right landing pages and reach the desired audience. It’s crucial to display your ads during the most impactful hours, like store open hours or lunchtime, a practice known as dayparting.

To achieve this, you can leverage the ad scheduling feature to specify the days of the week and the exams you want your ads to run. Ad scheduling allows you to optimize your ad performance by increasing your ad budget through bid adjustments for specific hours. This approach helps prevent your ads from underperforming and enables you to reach your target audience when they are most likely to engage with your ads.

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to use ad scheduling effectively:

• Create an ad campaign to which you want to apply the scheduling.
• Access the campaign you wish to adjust in AdWords.
• Navigate to the “Campaigns” tab and click on your chosen campaign.
• Click on the “Ad Schedule” tab to proceed.
• Focus on a precise time during the week by selecting a specific “Day” or even a particular “Hour.”
• Analyze patterns to identify consistent high-performance hours.
• After determining the best times to run your ads, you can now set your schedule.
• To do this, select “Ad Schedule” again and click “Edit Ad Schedule.”
• You’ll reach a screen where you can manually enter the time of day for bid adjustments.
• Choose whether to apply the change to all days or select individual days from the drop-down menus.
• Increase your bid amount during the best-performing times for your ad campaign.
• Click on the box next to the day and time you want to adjust, and then select the dash under the “Bid adj.” column.
• Adjust the bid by increasing or decreasing the percentage for that specific day and time.

It’s essential to monitor your campaign’s performance regularly and keep track of the days and times that generate the highest foot traffic. Use this valuable information to evaluate whether your campaigns need further adjustments and to optimize your ad scheduling effectively.

Use geo-targeting ads for specific locations.

If you need to optimize your AdWords campaigns for geo-targeting, you’re missing out on a powerful opportunity to drive local foot traffic to your store. Geo-targeting lets you identify your ideal customers’ locations based on their IP, WiFi, or GPS data. It enables you to tailor your ads to reach specific audiences in relevant areas.

According to BIA/Kelsey, U.S. mobile ad spending is projected to grow significantly, with a substantial portion dedicated to location-targeted mobile ads. This growth underscores the effectiveness of geo-targeting in reaching the right audience and driving local foot traffic.

Geo-targeting helps you reach your audience in the right locations and allows you to gather valuable data on consumer behaviors based on their locations. You can enhance ad relevance and performance by customizing your ads to geo-targeting consumers in specific areas like commercial zones or airports.

One successful example of geo-targeting is the Acquisitions strategy, which targets people who visit clinics or hospitals within a 50-mile radius. This approach achieved outstanding results with a 0.18% click-through rate (CTR) and over 6 million impressions.

To set up geo-targeting in AdWords, follow these steps:

• Open AdWords and select the campaign you created earlier.
• Click on the “Settings” tab.
• Choose the “Locations” drop-down menu.
• Click on “Advanced Search.”
• Enter the name of the exact postcode or street name you wish to target.
• Select the desired by choosing the entire postcode or setting a radius around a specific street.
• Initially, focus on the area where your store is located, for example, by targeting West 34th Street in Manhattan.
• Click “Radius,” adjust it to “2 miles,” and enter the street name.
• Click “Target,” and AdWords will generate a geo-target zone of two miles around your desired location.
• Once satisfied, click “Save” to apply the changes to your campaign.

You can repeat this process to add multiple locations and adjust the radius. For instance, you might run a brand awareness ad campaign targeting the entire NYC area, while a separate “promotional” campaign focuses on local foot traffic within a one-mile radius.

Local inventory ads

The growth of Google Shopping and text ads by 20% from 2016 to 2017, with total revenue increasing by 64% from 2016 to 2018, highlights retailers’ continued interest in utilizing Google Shopping as an effective advertising channel. According to Sidecar’s 2018 Google Shopping Benchmark Report, one notable trend to watch is the convergence of online and in-store experiences as consumers seek to enjoy the advantages of both e-commerce and brick-and-mortar shopping.

Google leverages local inventory ads and Google Shopping to cater to customers who research products online but prefer to purchase in physical stores. When consumers click on an ad, they are directed to a Google-hosted page called the local storefront, where they can access essential store information, including in-store inventory, store hours, directions, and promotions. Local inventory ads synchronize real-time inventory, ensuring shoppers know product availability before visiting a store.

Bringing local stores online through local inventory ads allows businesses to target online customers with localized advertisements, driving in-store sales. Setting up local inventory ads requires a Merchant Center account, AdWords account, and Google My Business locations account to store location information. Additionally, product feed creation and inventory management skills are required.

To enable local inventory ads, follow these steps:

• Enable local inventory ads in your Merchant Center account by navigating to the “Merchant Center programs” section and clicking “Get Started” under Local Inventory Ads. Confirm that you meet the qualifications and click “Enable.”
• Configure your store’s country by clicking the large “+” button and adding your store’s country details. Save the information.
• If based in Europe, verify your About Page if applicable. Otherwise, proceed to the next step.
• Create a local product inventory feed that tells Google which products are available at each store location. Use Google’s beginner’s guide to help you create the feed and ensure it stays up-to-date.
• Submit your API files to your Merchant Center to register and submit your inventory feeds.
• Request inventory verification by going to “Local inventory ads” in the Merchant Center dashboard, selecting the relevant country, completing shipping cost and policy details, and clicking “Request Verification.”
• Once you’ve created and submitted your feeds to the Merchant Center, a Google representative will schedule a store visit to verify that your inventory is current and accurate.
• Enable local inventory ads in Google AdWords by creating a shopping campaign if you haven’t already.

By following these steps and leveraging local inventory ads, businesses can effectively bridge the gap between their online and physical store experiences, providing customers with the convenience and information they seek, ultimately driving more in-store sales and enhancing overall advertising success.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Local Search Ads offer a game-changing opportunity for businesses to boost foot traffic and connect with their local audience. Businesses can achieve unparalleled growth and visibility in their communities by utilizing location-based targeting, optimizing ad campaigns, and staying attuned to consumer trends. Embrace the power of Local Search Ads and unlock the potential to thrive in the competitive local market, driving sales and solidifying your presence.

FAQs

What are Local Search Ads, and how do they work?

Local Search Ads are online advertising that allows businesses to target potential customers in specific geographic areas. These ads appear on search engine result pages and online maps when users search for relevant products or services in their local vicinity. By utilizing location-based targeting and relevant keywords, businesses can connect with local customers actively looking for their offerings.

How can Local Search Ads benefit my business?

Local Search Ads offer numerous benefits for businesses seeking to increase foot traffic and sales in their local area. They provide a cost-effective way to reach a highly targeted audience, ensuring your ads are shown to people most likely interested in your products or services. With Local Search Ads, you can improve your online visibility, drive more potential customers to your physical store or business location, and ultimately boost your bottom line.

Are Local Search Ads suitable for all types of businesses?

Yes, Local Search Ads can benefit many businesses, from small local shops to larger enterprises with multiple locations. Any business that relies on local customers can benefit from using Local Search Ads to promote their offerings and attract foot traffic. Whether you’re a restaurant, retail store, service provider, or any other local business, incorporating Local Search Ads into your marketing strategy can yield positive results.

How can I optimize my Local Search Ads for better results?

To optimize your Local Search Ads, focus on the following key aspects:

a) Accurate and up-to-date business information: Ensure your business name, address, phone number, and other details are accurate and consistent across all platforms.

b) Relevant keywords and ad copy: Use relevant keywords that reflect what customers are searching for and create compelling ad copy that entices them to click.

c) Location targeting: Refine your ad targeting to specific geographic areas where your potential customers are.

d) Regular performance analysis: Monitor the performance of your ads regularly and make necessary adjustments to improve their effectiveness.