If you’re running Google Ads to get foot traffic to your business, then there are a few different ways to optimize for the best performance.

Using location targeting, location extensions, and dynamic location insertion are all great tools to improve local targeting and help people find your local business.

When selecting your location targeting, think about these questions:

  • Where is your main customer base located?
  • How far are people willing to travel to get to you?
  • How many of your competitors will they pass while traveling to you?

Connecting a location extension helps you stand out within Google Maps results. This allows your Google My Business page to appear as a sponsored result within Google Maps, at the top or bottom of the list, similar to how a normal ad would appear within search results.

Incorporating locations into your ad messaging can also help people understand exactly where you offer services. Using familiar names or smaller suburbs instead of major cities also has the potential to make your ads more local and compelling.

Utilizing dynamic location insertion in your search ads is a great way to accomplish this.

Click here for a quick tutorial on how to incorporate dynamic location insertion into your Google Ads.

If you would like to get a comprehensive list of other simple but necessary Google Ads optimizations, sign up to receive our Ultimate Google Ads Checklist.

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Video Transcription

0:00
[Music]
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Hi this is Maura with Main Street ROI and we help small
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businesses with their digital marketing
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if you’re running Google ads to a
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business that depends on foot traffic or
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in-person sales this video is for you we
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are going to be talking about how to run
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ads within your local community in order
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to increase your ROI from your Google
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ads so the first place we’re going to
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start is with your location targeting as
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always this is on the left side of your
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menu and under the show more button you
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can set this up when you are creating
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the campaign and you can also alter it
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at any different point throughout your
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campaign’s run time
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um but I think this is one of the
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crucial crucial steps to figuring out
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um how to make your campaign run better
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in your community so for this example
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we’re going to be talking about a coffee
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shop and I am located in the heart of DC
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so when I’m setting up my location
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targeting there are a few things that I
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want to take into account population
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density this also has a lot to do with
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you know traffic how far people are
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actually willing to travel so in this
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example
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um I don’t really think someone’s gonna
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drive 20 miles to come to my coffee shop
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from Super far out or in this case
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possibly even a different state they’re
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going to pass multiple other coffee
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shops along the way and I don’t really
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know if my coffee shop has you know that
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much of a value offering for it to be
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worth it for me to actually advertise
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that far out so what I’ve done here is
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I’ve set up different overlapping
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location radiuses around the business
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address and as your ads run over time
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using these radiuses you can kind of
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assess conversion rate and cost per
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conversion for each one of these and
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that can help narrow down where your
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customers are actually coming from just
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because someone is driving not trying a
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minute or 20 mile trip to your coffee
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shop doesn’t mean that those are going
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to be your best customers or the people
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that are going to cost the lease for you
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to actually get them in the store
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so the next thing that we’re going to
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talk about is actually the location
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extension asset so what this does is
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this actually puts your
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Google my business profile in
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conjunction with your Google ads so it
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allows your Google my business profile
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to appear within map results at the top
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or bottom very similar to how it would
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appear for a normal Google search this
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is super important um you’re going to
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set this up on the left side by going to
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ads and assets and it’s going to be
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under assets it’s the location extension
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so you connect your Google my business
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and then make sure while you’re in there
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you’re only selecting the locations that
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you’re targeting within each campaign or
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each account so you want to be very
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specific about that if you have
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um you know multiple different locations
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and you’re running multiple different
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campaigns make sure you narrow it down
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so someone in a campaign for Washington
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DC is not weirdly seeing location
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targeting for a location
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in Richmond Virginia or somewhere that’s
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a little bit farther away but this is
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great when people are actually searching
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with within Google Maps if they’re
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looking you know coffee shop near me if
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you’re within that location radius it’s
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going to pop up as a search and it’s
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going to show the closest coffee shops
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to you so obviously the closer the
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person is to the coffee shops the more
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likely your ad is to actually appear
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and then the last thing we’re actually
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going to talk about today is using
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keyword insertion as a way of being more
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familiar with your audience so when
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you’re actually writing the ad copy for
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your ads you can dynamically insert
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keywords by using brackets within the
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headline
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the way I like to use it the most is by
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using location insertion so this means
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that I can define a general location and
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say coffee shop and then dynamically
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insert in Washington DC but if I’m
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looking to get a little bit more
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familiar I could use cities or something
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within that so someone’s location might
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be more specific like Adams Morgan or
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Capitol Hill or Georgetown and it can be
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able to actually insert that in there so
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when someone’s searching they know that
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you are a good option A close option and
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that you’re familiar with the area so it
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just kind of creates a little bit of
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extra rapport
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so I know this is a lot that you can do
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but honestly all of these things are
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going to contribute to a better local
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campaign
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um if you have any questions please
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reach out to us on our website and be
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sure to grab a copy of our Google ads
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checklist at the end of this video
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thanks bye