Setup Guide for Location Extensions
If you’re in a business with physical store locations that you want customers to visit, and you are running SEM campaigns, you should absolutely be using location extensions to supplement your marketing efforts.
This simple ad extension type does its expected duty of expanding and increasing the clickable parts of your ad space, but where it really begins to shine is in its integration with your Google My Business (GMB) profile. The connection between your organic Google listing and your paid advertising helps reveal the full extent of your customer’s journey. That’s because your GMB appears on the right side of SERP when users perform searches related to you and it also appears in Google Maps. Users can use your GMB to inquire directions, call you, or leave reviews and the integration allows you to take advantage of some of these details about your business in your ads.
Location extensions can appear on the search & display network, Google Maps, and YouTube Video Ads. In this blog we’ll focus on the benefits Location Extensions provide for Google Maps, phone calls, and address features.
After linking your Google Ads to your Google My Business (GMB) account, you can create a location extensions by opening your Google Ads account. Navigate to “Ads & extensions” > “EXTENSIONS” tab > click the “+” symbol > then select“Location extension”.
If you have multiple locations, you can specify which location you want your location extension to be applied to.
Once applied, you should start seeing this extension in the wild:
Here we have an expanded text ad with a clickable location extension as well as the current day’s business hours and a drop down with a details page for this location. Clicking on the address leads you to Google Maps for quick and easy directions.
This extension will display differently on mobile compared to desktop taking into account the different intent of users. Mobile users tend to have a sense of urgency – they’re on the move, prepared to make a call, and find an answer now. They are likely to be served a click-to-call button and your distance from a business. On the other hand, desktop users are likely doing research so they are likely to be served a business’ street address and a clickable access to details such as hours, phone number, and photos. Here we see the location extension allows the user to know their distance from different nearby business and a click-to-call button that will route to the primary number on the GMB listing.
I saved the best for last – my favorite feature is seen here in Google Maps. A search for “pizza” yields a bunch of local options with orange circles on the map, but if you look closely you’ll see the effects of our location extensions at work marked with lavender “Ad” on the business listings (left) and circles on the map. The top-most location even appears when it’s clearly NOT the closest option available. This provides more visibility for a business even though it’s not conveniently located near the searcher compared to other businesses. More visibility means more eyes on your business and potentially more customers.
I hope you enjoyed my brief overview on location extensions and are ready to implement this into your marketing strategy. Location extensions are a great way of getting more foot traffic, calls, and direction requests to your business.
Good luck managing the upcoming flow of customers to all of your locations!
