How to Get the Most out of Google’s Local Campaigns

Share:

Connecting with potential shoppers locally is essential for your business to grow offline and to build customer loyalty. There has been a lot of fluctuation because of lockdowns during the pandemic, which have required stores to quickly adapt to new policies and procedures, resulting in consumer behavior changes. Finding solutions to reach customers and engage them, especially during the holiday season, will be key to driving more shoppers to your stores.

Google Local Campaigns can bridge the gap between online and in-store shopping. Use this campaign type to capture local intent, reach your offline business goals, and highlight unique information or offerings provided at your stores. Key benefits include sharing up-to-date information on safety measures, store hours, and guidance on the best times for customers to visit. We’ll review how you can get the most out of Google’s Local Campaigns. By the end of the post, you’ll understand what they are, how they work, and when to run this campaign type.

WHAT IS A GOOGLE LOCAL CAMPAIGN?

Local Campaigns provide information about your physical store locations. This store-centric campaign type is specifically designed to optimize solely to in-store traffic and offline KPIs. It targets users across Google properties depending on their behavior and covers crucial areas of the customer journey. Local Campaigns serve across the upper-funnel on Display and YouTube and touch on the lower-funnel with maps, search, and business profiles.

Buyers may have hundreds of touchpoints before making a purchase. Use Google Local Campaigns to promote store reopenings, special hours, safety measures, and convenient business offerings like curbside pickup, takeout, drive-thru, or shop by appointment.

This campaign type will serve up to users across the following Google properties and networks: 

• Google search results
• Google Maps
• Business Profile
• Display
• YouTube
• YouTube home feed
• Gmail

HOW DO GOOGLE LOCAL AD CAMPAIGNS WORK?

1. Store Value KPI: Google sets Local actions or Store Visits conversions to optimize the campaign
2. Learning: An equal start-up budget is spread across each channel for the first several days to monitor performance
3. Optimizing: To maximize Store value, machine learning identifies patterns based on channel performance and optimizes budget
4. Fine Tuning: Advanced learning constantly monitors the performance of your campaigns so improvements can be made

WHEN TO RUN GOOGLE LOCAL CAMPAIGNS

• Return to store 
  • 59% of US adults surveyed in September feel safe returning to malls and in-person shopping, so we expect in-store sales this 2021 holiday season to surpass 2020. Local Campaigns are set up to exclusively optimize for store-centric signals, such as Store Visits or local actions. So, as shoppers return to stores, especially in areas where local mandates allow, Google Local Campaigns let you capture the attention of brick-and-mortar shoppers across multiple Google ad formats.
• Store locations that are underperforming or dense with competition 
  • Local Campaigns provide incremental reach on digital ad formats, including Search, Maps, Display, Gmail, and YouTube, resulting in increased impressions and engagement across touchpoints where your target audiences are spending time. If, as a retailer, you have specific store locations that aren’t performing or getting ideal foot traffic, testing Local Campaigns is a great way to increase exposure. They ensure digital shoppers know of nearby physical locations, which is valuable for the holidays and beyond.
  • Additionally, suppose your store is located in a dense area with competition nearby. In that case, it may be challenging to get your organic search or map listing to serve when a consumer does a local search. Using Local Campaigns will give your business the best chance of exposure when local intent is shown. 
• Drive sales after shipping cut-offs
  • Shipping windows this holiday season will require consumers to shop earlier to deliver gifts in time and order essentials for their personal needs during the season. Local Campaigns allow you to continue driving in-store sales from digital so consumers can pick up holiday gifts even after these cut-offs. 

• Always-on campaigns
  • Remain top-of-mind with your customers by consistently engaging with them where they are through the entire buyer journey. Use always-on campaigns to drive awareness about your stores, offerings, and promotions with the goal of growing foot traffic and in-store sales on an ongoing basis.

ADLUCENT CLIENT SEES 7.1% LIFT WITH LOCAL CAMPAIGNS

Our client, an office retailer, had a primary objective of driving in-store retail sales and proving the value of local search. The goal was to drive incremental footfall to their stores and increase Store Visits using Local Campaigns. Adlucent designed a geographical experiment based on Google’s methodology (GeoX) Time Based Regression. The experiment predicted the time series of a hypothetical market response to gauge the impact of Local Campaigns. The US was split into a 25% test and 75% control group for the test using a list of the client’s store locations. Local Campaigns were determined to show a 7.1% statistically significant lift in ROAS for the office retailer when comparing tests to control stores.

CONCLUSION

Digital marketing, social media, and search engines have allowed businesses to connect with a vast number of customers digitally. But, don’t forget about the customers right outside your front door. Google’s Local Campaigns will enable you to connect with your local audiences across the funnel and several of Google’s properties. If you’re considering Google Local Campaigns and need guidance on using this campaign type to achieve your offline business goals and improve Store Visits, contact us for a free consultation.

Victoria Flores

Victoria Flores is a Demand Generation Manager at Adlucent. She has a background in content marketing, SEO, and graphic design. Her passion for creative marketing allows her to develop unique and effective solutions to drive demand. You can find her out on the Texas trails or bouldering when she is not at her desk.