Local Advertising with Google Ads is designed for both small businesses but also for large and medium-sized companies with several locations such as supermarket chains or businesses with several branches spread across the territory that want to promote themselves by focusing on a geographic target circumscribed to their target area.
For example, it is useful for increasing restaurant sales, as an advertisement for pizzerias or to promote professionals, taxi drivers, ncc, through Google’s Search Network, Maps, Google’s Display Network and YouTube.
In fact, with “local” advertising, it is possible to limit promotion to:
- A specific range (e.g. 1 km radius)
- a single municipality
- most common
- a geographical area
or to the most appropriate limits for the activity of choice according to the needs of individual realities.
How Local Advertising Works with Google Ads
Local advertising with google Ads works in a simple way.
First, in order to promote the locations affected by your business, you should link your Google My Business account or select sister locations. Second, you need to add the campaign budget and ad assets.
This data is enough for Google Ads’ machine learning-based technology to optimize bids, ad placements and plus combinations automatically.
The ultimate goal is to promote the locations of one’s business on Google by maximizing:
- in-store visits
- contacts
- contacts calls
The importance of monitoring at all levels is well understood by Google, which has new features for store visits in beta.
In fact, with Google’s technology for tracking in-store visits , you can understand how ad clicks and visible impressions affect visits to your business.

Where the ads are posted
Local advertising ads are placed on some of Google’s major channels, including:
Google Maps

The ads feature in Google Maps is activated when users search Google’s search engine for a business related to your business category.
Or again, when customers explore a geographic area in Google Maps corresponding to your relevant area, Google’s algorithm associates the search with the location of your business. Basically, all users who are close to your company’s location or plan to approach it could see your ad.
Google Search Network

In the Search Network, Google associates user searches with keywords relevant to your business and geographic location, with your ad.
Google Display Network

Locally created ads are shown on Google’s Display Network in the most relevant locations. In fact, Google Ads optimizes where to show ads to capture users’ attention to your activities.
In particular, the best display positions can be obtained based on the supply and quality of the ads created.
Fundamental is to fix the targeting of ads such as articles that deal with our business or address issues about the services we offer, pages that deal with news from the same location, or even pages with content related to our industry.
YouTube

Thanks to Google Ads, it is also possible to show ads on YouTube.
In fact, it is possible to create ad hoc videos to be uploaded in preroll
However youtube is a placement of Google’s display network with targeting criteria similar to the display network itself.
Advertisements are placed in the positions where they are most likely to receive clicks.
Location extensions
An additional level of precision in setting up local advertising campaigns is provided by the ability to also use location extensions in ads.
For example, for businesses that use Google My Business, Google’s free service for posting business contacts and information online, the inclusion of location extensions allows very useful data such as address, phone number, and map to be added to listings.
In this way you can circumscribe your ads to a short radius, providing all the contacts you need to be found very specifically by the customers who are looking for you and gravitate to your business.
This causes the performance of your offer to increase not only because you have selected the most relevant geographic targeting, but also because you will ensure that your customers will find and contact you more easily.
Learn more about the advantages and benefits of using Google Ads in Milan and discover the advantages of online advertising!
You might also be interested in our How Much Does Google Ads Cost service.
Contact us to set up the best local campaigns or to configure and link Google My Business to Google Ads.