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Get organized this spring with new location features in AdWords and share your stories

Over the past 30 years, California Closet Company has grown from the brainchild of a college student organizing his dorm room closet to a successful business with more than 77 franchise locations. To reach customers across the U.S. and internationally, the company centered their digital marketing strategy on creating locally relevant campaigns.

It’s no surprise that local campaigns are a focus for many businesses--from finding directions to looking up a phone number, more people are going online to find local information. In fact, more than 20% of searches on Google are related to location, and people often act quickly on local searches. Research shows that using smartphones, 88% of people who search for local information take action within a day.

To help you organize your local ad campaigns this spring, we’re introducing three new features in AdWords to help you create ads that are more relevant to local customers.

Target customers by zip code
If you customize your direct mail, outdoor ads, or newspaper ads at a postal code level, you now can easily do the same in AdWords in the US. We are introducing the ability to target more than 30,000 US ZIP Codes with your AdWords campaigns.

You will be able to add up to 1,000 postal codes at a time to your search ad campaigns with AdWords Location Targeting. Plus, you can get feedback on the performance of your local campaigns by viewing campaign performance statistics at the postal code level.

"Location targeting within AdWords helped us double lead volume and cut the cost to acquire new customers in half,” said Lois Erbay, Director of Marketing, California Closet Company. “We plan on building on that success by using ZIP Code targeting to create even more locally relevant campaigns for our customers.”


More locally relevant ads in less time
To help you easily create a custom ad title, text, display URL, and/or destination URL for all of your locations at scale, we’ve developed location insertion for location extensions. You’ll no longer need to create multiple ads for multiple locations--this new feature automatically inserts the city, phone number, or zip code of your local business into your ad text.

For example, if your ad text says: “Find a {lb.city:Local} Store or Shop Online,” a user viewing your ad in Chicago would see: “Find a Chicago Store or Shop Online.” This new feature cuts out all the work to building out ad text featuring local information for all your locations.

Ad with location insertion in the text and display URL

“We’ve had amazing success manually customizing our creative with local information for our top markets, which shows us that customers want locally-relevant results when it comes to a service like storage,” said Chris Laczi, Advertising Director, Uncle Bob's Self Storage. “That’s why we’re very excited about location insertion. It will simplify the task of creating locally customized ads for our 400+ locations, and we expect it will greatly enhance conversion rate of our ads.”

You must have location extensions set up and running in order to enable location insertion. Location insertion will work even if your location extensions don’t show because of other extensions. We detect location based on where your customer is physically located or by the geographic locations she may have shown interest in.


Better clarity and control
When we launched advanced location targeting in March 2011, we provided you with more control over how you geographically target your ads. Based on advertiser feedback, we’re implementing four additional enhancements that will make location targeting options clearer and more powerful. Read more about these enhancements in the Help Center and in this blog post.

There is significant opportunity for businesses to reach local customers online and win moments that matter by delivering the right ad in the right context. Stay tuned for more information on how ZIP Code targeting can help you grow your business.

We want to hear from you about your success in getting local with AdWords--share your story here and we might reach out to you to participate in our upcoming blog posts.

Posted by Richard Holden, Product Management Director (cross-posted from the Inside AdWords blog)
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We're pleased to kick off the 2010 holiday blog post series, "Getting Ready for the Holidays." As we did in 2009 with the Holiday Campaign Countdown series, we'll once again be regularly posting seasonally-focused resources and strategies through the next few months, starting off with best practices from the Google Product Search team.

As we draw closer to Q4, it's a good time to make sure you're getting your clients all the traffic you can from free sources. Most of your retail clients are probably already participating in Google Product Search, a free and powerful way for merchants to connect their products to millions of shoppers on the web. If they're not, send them over to google.com/products/submit to get them started. If they are, here are some tips to make sure they're getting the most out of this free product:
  • Submitting all required and suggested attributes, including "unique product identifiers." These unique identifiers will soon be necessary to be included in Google Product Search listings.
  • Sign up for product-based ad formats, like Google Product Extensions. These ad formats are powered by the merchant's product data feed, and they provide users with more information than standard text ads.
  • Urge your clients to submit product reviews when they have them. Merchants who submit product reviews to Google will have their logos displayed on product pages when their reviews appear, adding another source of free traffic.
  • Help your clients sign up for Google Places, which will help online shoppers find their store locations and hours and complete the cross-channel shopping experience.
For more information, visit google.com/products/submit.

Posted by Vivek Tata, Product Marketing Manager
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The end of the year is typically a time to reflect on the past 12 months and plan for the next adventure. Taking inspiration from our favorite pre-holiday work distraction, we are pleased to bring you the Agency blog's own "best of 2009." Your visits and time spent on site helped us identify the information, ideas and resources that can best help you move your clients' businesses forward.

1. Google Content Network tips and tools - Knowing that the Content Network offers the opportunity to scalably expand your clients' reach, we posted on a number of Content Network topics, ranging from tools to optimization tips to training resources. We hope that they enabled you to plan, execute and measure your Content Network campaigns in the most impactful, efficient and cost-effective ways possible.

2. Quality Score - A key element of successful campaigns is ensuring that they have the strongest Quality Score possible. Whether you're brand new to search marketing, or were one of the first search advertisers on the scene, there's always something new to learn about Quality Score. To help you get the strongest Quality Score, we ran our Quality Score series and will continue to post new tips as they become available.

3. Case studies - One piece of feedback we heard is that agencies and advertisers value case studies, as they inspire and instruct with "best in class" examples and useful data points. We also heard that sometimes they're not easy to find. As a result, we added case studies to the 2009 blog list, with topics ranging from online-to-stores successes to effective integrated media campaigns.

4. Training resources - With the frequency of additions and updates to Google's media solutions, you could spend as much time keeping up to speed as you do managing your clients' campaigns. Knowing your time is precious, we focused on webinars and on-demand videos that work with your schedules and deliver just the right amount of information. In addition, we introduced you to Google AgencyLand, our new learning and resources platform for agencies.

5. Analytics - Whether you love data, or love to hate data, data is central to successful campaigns. We want you all to love it, so we posted our favorite Analytics 60-second videos, product updates, as well as useful tips delivered from in-house experts, including Analytics Evangelist Avinash Kaushik.

6. Local marketing resources - Sometimes your clients' customer is half way across the globe; other times the customer is half a block away. Regardless, it is important to market to consumers where they are, and Google has made it easier to do that with new and improved local marketing features, such as Location Extensions and Place Pages in Placement Performance reports.

It's been a pleasure blogging for you in 2009, and we look forward to bringing you fresh new tips, tactics, resources and updates in 2010.

Posted by Agency Ad Solutions Blog Team
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Research into consumer shopping habits has shown that consumers are shopping locally and are researching purchases online before heading to the store. A popular industry study reports that 80% of consumer spending occurs within 50 miles of home. A joint Nielsen and Webvisible study shows that 50% of consumers head to search engines first when researching local businesses1. Another study, carried out by TMP Directional Marketing and comScore, finds that nearly 4 in 10 consumers visit a store in person after researching it online2.

Based on this data, it's easy to think that local advertising is just for local businesses. Local ads can also serve, though, as a powerful vehicle for national businesses to establish a local presence and to reach consumers where they're shopping. For clients who are interested in tapping into the local opportunity, we offer a feature in AdWords called location extensions. Location extensions work by allowing you to dynamically return relevant business addresses with your clients' text ads based on a user's location and search terms.

There are a number of benefits to location extensions. With location extensions, you can offer more information about your business to customers who are close enough to visit your business, or who are already searching or browsing for information related to your business. Location extensions attract user attention by displaying an address as another line of text on Google.com and with a custom icon on Google Maps.

Perhaps the most important benefit of location extensions for larger accounts and agencies is the ability to create and edit ads at scale. For each text ad you create, AdWords can automatically generate muliple ad variations by dynamically matching your ad with relevant business addresses you've uploaded to the Local Business Center. When you edit an ad, your addresses will be displayed with the new ad text immediately.

There are three steps for getting started with location extensions and they all take place on the Settings tab in your account.

1. Use local targeting to select the locations you'd like to target
2. Select the option to "show relevant addresses with my ads" to enable location extensions
3. Sync your Local Business Center account with your AdWords account:
  • If you update or add an address in your Local Business Center account, it will automatically update in AdWords
  • If you don't have a Local Business Center account, you can sign up here. You can also manually enter addresses into AdWords, but with this option, there is a nine address limit per campaign.



While the Local Business Center was designed for primary business owners, non-business owners, such as agencies, can still sync AdWords with Local Business Center as long as they are a representative for a given business. (Note: The Local Business Center is still not intended for aggregator use). If you are representing a business with more than ten locations, you can submit a bulk upload to the Local Business Center. While bulk uploaded data is not verified and may not show up on Google Maps, the addresses can be used for location extensions. Bulk uploading will not require verification by a phone call or postcard with a PIN.

[1] 'Great Divide' separates small biz, online consumers, www.marketingcharts.com
[2] Wave 3: Local Search Usage Study, TMP Directional Marketing and comScore, 10.8.2009

Posted by Alexandra Kenin, Product Marketing Manager
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Last week Susan Wojcicki, VP, Product Management, shared an update on some of the new search ad formats we've been testing. Knowing that you're knee deep in holiday campaigns and 2010 planning, we wanted to share an overview of these formats with you so that you may consider them for your strategies. As you'll see, each of the new formats aims to provide additional information, delivered in the most useful format (whether it be images, videos, or maps) to help users make better informed decisions.

Ad Sitelinks: In early November we launched Ad Sitelinks, a new AdWords feature that allows you to extend the value of your existing AdWords ads by providing additional links to content deep within your sites.

Product Extensions: Similar to Ad Sitelinks, product extensions enrich existing AdWords ads with additional relevant information - in this case, information on products included in an advertiser's Google Merchant Center account.

Location Extensions: For advertisers with a brick-and-mortar presence, Location Extensions enable them to dynamically attach business addresses to ads.

Comparison Ads: Comparison Ads, which are currently being tested by a limited number of advertisers in the mortgage/refinance space, will enable users to specify what they're looking for and compare prices in a single space.

For more information on the new search ad formats, visit the Official Google Blog or the Inside AdWords Blog.

Posted by Agency Ad Solutions Blog Team
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You may remember that earlier this fall we announced the launch of Place Pages for Google Maps, which are web pages for every place in the world. Interested users can find relevant information, photos, directions, and reviews for their favorite places. Users will also see contextually targeted ads, and with the inclusion of Place Pages in Placement Performance reports, you'll now have insight into whether your clients' ads appeared on a Place Page and how they performed.

With this update, you can more closely monitor and optimize your clients' campaigns. While placement targeting is not available for Google Maps, you can increase the likelihood of appearing on Place Pages by increasing bids on high-performing keywords or by creating ad groups with highly specific keywords to target Place Pages relevant to your clients' products or businesses.

Posted by Agency Ad Solutions Blog Team
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If you read the Official Google Blog, you may have seen the announcement of Place Pages in Google Maps. If you missed the post, Place Pages are pages with information for every place in the world, from landmarks to cities and everything in between, including, of course, businesses. On the tails of the Place Pages launch, we wanted to remind you that your clients can ensure their Place Page information is accurate by updating their Local Business Center listings. If your clients still need some encouragement to add their businesses to the Local Business Center, the video below offers a quick overview of the process and advantages of adding or claiming one's business listing.


And you won't want to miss the overview of all the information about your clients' listings now available in the Local Business center, such as impressions, top search queries, and where driving directions requests are coming from.

Posted by the Agency Ad Solutions Blog Team
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If your clients use Local Business Listings on Google Maps to drive traffic to their brick and mortar locations, they're probably familiar with the verification process to ensure the accuracy of their listing. Clients with 10 or more business locations can upload their listings via bulk uploads, but in the past couldn't verify bulk uploaded listings. Until now.

Business owners can now verify bulk uploaded listings as well, provided that their bulk uploads satisfy the following requirements:
If your client's bulk uploads check out according to the above list, he or she can fill out this form to verify the listings. Remind your clients to update their bulk uploads whenever anything changes, as listings are periodically reviewed and will become unverified if we find they don't meet the requirements. For more information on the Local Business Center, check out our User Guide.

Posted by Agency Ad Solutions Blog Team
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As Google customers, both you and your clients care that people can find you on the Internet. If your clients have one or more physical locations, it's just as important that customers can find them on the map.

For example, last week I needed directions to a hotel in Sacramento that I had booked for the 4th of July weekend. As I had never been to Sacramento, I was puzzled by the limited directions on the hotel's site - I had no idea whether I was approaching from the North, South, East or West or where the major highways were. What I needed were step-by-step directions from my exact starting point to the hotel that I could easily print and go.

The Google Maps team is excited to tell you about a simple way that you and your clients can add customized directions to your business locations. With the Google directions gadget, any website can offer customized door-to-door directions powered by Google Maps. You no longer need to type and update multiple sets of text directions. Let's face it - customers are only looking for directions from their specific location.

The gadget allows you to pre-fill the "To" field with one or multiple addresses, a generic zip code or even a specific set of latitude-longitude coordinates. Customers are able to print their directions with a single click. If they would prefer not to drive, the gadget also provides walking and public transit directions.

Take a look at how some organizations like Legoland California, Emeril Lagasse, and Harvard University are using the gadget. Then test and create your own directions gadget here. The gadget is currently available in 23 different languages.

For more information on the gadget, visit the Google Lat Long blog.

Posted by Julie Zhou, Product Marketing Manager, Google Maps
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