PinMeTo - Location Ads Q&A with the experts at GroupM

For expert advice on using location ads, we reached out to our friends at GroupM, one of the world’s largest digital media agencies.

How and why do you use location ads to drive foot traffic to locations? What advantages do these types of ads have, compared to other ad types?

Depending on search behavior and search volumes, we have two preferred ad types from Paid Search and Google Ads when the goal is to drive foot traffic.

If your brand is unknown or search volumes are low, then Local Campaigns in Google Ads, which are specifically designed to drive foot traffic, are a great option.

• Fast food chain: We use Local Campaigns in Google Ads to drive visitors to the restaurants. These ads are mainly shown in a short radius from each address, and to people most likely to visit the restaurant. We focus our marketing messages on daily/weekly/monthly deals or to display new products. We’ve also used similar content and messages in Google Discovery Ads which has been very effective, since the search volume for relevant terms usually is very low. This way we use other ad formats instead of text ads to reach the potential customer. It’s all about reaching the right audience with the right message in the right time to make them spontaneously visit the restaurants.

• Retail: We work with clients that sell their products both online and in stores. Online sales is usually the main focus when it comes to performance marketing, but in many cases it’s common to do research online and then buy in-store. Online marketing can be equally as important in this case, but we need to find different ways to measure the value. A good start is usually to make sure your Google My Business is set up the right way, assign a relevant conversion period (number of days) that you want to record Store Visits after an ad click, and assign a value to each visit based on your average in-store conversion rate and the average value of each paying customer.

How important is it to have the right setup and infrastructure in place when running these campaigns?

What might you miss out on if you don’t have the right setup when running these campaigns?

Thanks to the GroupM contributors: