Mark Irvine — March 20, 2017 Every year, as we spend more time on our devices and on the go, our search intent increasingly becomes more local. Google knows this all too well and it continues to give advertisers new tools to target local users, ad extensions to show location and affiliate locations, and ways to measure in-store visits spurred from our actions on the SERP.
But as we become more connected with our phones, Google knows that even if we’re searching more locally, we’re spending far more time in apps than browsers or search engines.
Image via Business Insider
Given how relatively little time local audiences spend actively searching in Google for your offerings, Google has just released a way for Google Display Network advertisers to cater their ads to local users across the sites and apps they visit.
Google’s new Display Location Extensions behave similarly to the location extensions we see on the SERP by showing your local business address beneath your ad. Interested users can choose to click the location extension to get driving directions to your local store or click through to your site to learn more.
How to Set Up (or Opt Out of) Display Location Extensions
Location extensions on the Display network are created the same way as location extensions on the search network. First, create a Google My Business account for your business. Once you’ve verified your address, hours, and phone number, link your AdWords account to your Google My Business account.
From there, creating a location extension is as easy as hitting the big red +Extension button within the Ad Extension tab of AdWords. Location extensions can be created at the account, campaign, or ad group level. If you apply a location extension to the account level or to a display campaign, your display ads are eligible to show this information to local users.
However, not all image ad formats will show location extensions. Only text ads, responsive ads, and 300 x 250 image ads will show display location extensions now.
If you don’t care for Google changing how your display ads look, it’s easy to opt out of showing these extensions in your display campaigns. Simply review the ad extensions applied to your display campaigns. If you’ve previously set an extension to run at the account level, you’ll need to change it to run only within selected campaigns to prevent it from showing in your display ads.
Whether you’re a master at Google Display campaigns or you’ve been putting it aside for a while, these new ad formats are extra enticing for local advertisers looking to expand their reach beyond the SERP!
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