Maximize Your Reach with Google Local Inventory Ads Guide

Local retailers need to be seen in local search results to expand their business. With consumers increasingly using search engines to identify local items and services, a retailer’s presence across channels can have a big impact on its performance.

Google local inventory ads are an effective strategy for closing the gap between internet browsing and in-store visits. This post will explain what Google Local Inventory Ads are and how to set them up properly to increase your local sales and online visibility.

What are local inventory ads?

These are dynamic advertisements that promote physical store locations and the product feed they offer. LIAS works by combining the popular Google Shopping ad format with a predefined geographic radius.

By setting a radius around real retail locations, businesses can inform Google that users in this area are valuable. On the other hand, this radius informs Google that users outside of the area are irrelevant and should not be targeted.

When a shopper searches for a product within that predetermined radius, they are offered a dynamically produced ad that highlights both the product and the brick-and-mortar location where they may find it. These advertisements may be displayed on mobile and desktop search results pages, picture searches, and Google Shopping.

How to Set Up Google Local Inventory Ads for Success

Setting up Google Local Inventory Ads consists of numerous phases, each of which is critical to ensuring that your ads reach potential customers efficiently. Here are some step-by-step instructions:

1. Set Up Your Google Business Profile

Begin by claiming and confirming your business on Google Business Profile. This ensures your store appears on Google Maps and Search, which is required for running local inventory ads.

2. Integrate Your Inventory Management System

Google demands real-time input from your local product inventory feed. Integrating your inventory management system with Google Merchant Center allows your product availability to be automatically updated.

3. Creating Your Local Inventory Ads Through Google Ads

Once your inventory is linked to Google Merchant Centre, set up a campaign in Google Ads for local inventory ads. You’ll establish a budget, select where your advertising appears, and create ad groups.

4. Adjusting Your Ads for the Best Performance

Review your advertising’s performance regularly and make adjustments to your bids, budget, and ad text based on what works best. This includes optimizing your ad copy and imagery to increase clicks.

Requirements For Local Inventory Ads

Location is the most important consideration when setting up local inventory ads. Similarly, there are additional qualifying conditions for creating these ads. Please go through them below. Your company should have a tangible, local shop where clients may examine and purchase things.

If you have a club or store membership and want to buy things, you cannot engage in local inventory ads. However, if you allow non-members to purchase at different prices, you can participate if you use non-member pricing and guarantee that it is displayed on your landing page. You can also display the member price if you want.

Any additional fees incurred at checkout must be included in the total product price. Follow the tax and pricing guidelines for your online offerings, and include any additional taxes in the product price. Google advises using a merchant-hosted local storefront (full) for taxes and additional fees that are only collected in specific locations to ensure that your products can service all locales.

• Stores that promote products that violate shopping ads’ content restrictions are ineligible for local advertisements.
• You should have a physical presence in the country where your advertisements are aimed.
• You should prepare for the inventory verification process.

How Do You Set Up Your Local Inventory Ad Campaigns?

We have established LIAs at the Merchant Center. The next stage is to run advertisements. In this section, we will look at how to set up advertising in Google Ads, including the performance max (Pmax) campaign.

Step-by-step Campaign Setup Process

• Click the Campaigns drop-down menu.
• Click Campaigns.
• Click the options icon next to the campaign.
• Click the Additional Settings arrow, then Local Inventory Ads.
• Check the box to enable local inventory ads.
• Click Save.

Choosing the Right Ad Format

Depending on the inventory you supply to Google, your ads are presented in various ways. As a result, you can select the ad formats for qualifying inventory in your shopping campaign.

Local Inventory Ads Performance Max

Performance Max Campaign, powered by AI, is an automated campaign that allows advertisers to access the complete Google inventory. They assist you in increasing sales from your budget, optimizing campaign ROI, and investing in the optimum moments based on real-time analysis of user behavior. PMax commercials appear in the following:

• 1. Search
• 2. Display
• 3. YouTube
• 4. Discover
• 5. Gmail
• 6. Maps

PMax campaigns increase conversions and are utilized for a specific aim. Running local inventory advertisements with the Performance Max campaign will produce the best results.

Benefits of Local Inventory Ads

Local inventory ads have several benefits. Here are a few of them:

• Encourage Store Visits: When customers see your advertisements, they look for the product’s in-store availability and then come to your store to check it out.
• Promote in-store inventory: local inventory advertising contains information about the store, such as product availability and store hours. As a result, buyers know exactly what is available in the store ahead of time.
• Provide a Relevant Shopping Experience: Buyers look for preferred products on Google before visiting your store. This suggests they have already decided to buy the product. As a result, the shopping does not appear to be a forced purchase.
• Drive Online and Offline Sales: Buyers can also use LIAs to buy online. As a result, you give them the option of buying online and picking up the item or purchasing the thing in-store.
• Measure Ad Performance: Google provides statistics on shop performance, which can help you understand the efficacy of your ads.

Google Shopping Ads vs. Local Inventory Ads: How are they different? ‍

Although Google Shopping Ads and LIAs have certain similarities—they may even look the same to an untrained eye—three significant differences separate them.

1. PLA Google Shopping ads are designed to boost online sales, making them ideal for e-commerce businesses. Google local shopping ads target businesses with physical stores in order to promote foot traffic.
2. The design of the listings varies, with local inventory advertisements featuring labels like ‘In-store’ and ‘Pick up now,’ while Google Shopping ads are more focused on online shopping and may include shipping and promotion details.
3. Where consumers end up varies, with shopping advertisements guiding them directly to product pages, making it simple for them to buy online. Local shopping advertisements, on the other hand, utilize either a merchant-hosted local storefront or a Google-hosted storefront to offer searches with local product and store information.

Both are effective, but whether Google Shopping ads, local inventory ads, or both are best for you depends on your business and goals.

5 Local Inventory Ads best practices for successful results

Once your LIAs are up and running, use these recommended practices to ensure they are optimized and efficient, contributing to the success of your PLA Google Shopping.

1. Increase bids for shoppers who are nearby

Local inventory advertising is intended to target users within a certain geographic area of your store, usually between 25 and 35 miles. To improve the effectiveness of LIAs, consider increasing bids for shoppers near your location.

The reasoning behind this method is straightforward: the closer a potential consumer is to your store’s location, the more likely they are to visit and make a purchase.

Increasing bids for nearby shoppers guarantees that your ads are more prominently displayed to individuals who are most likely to convert, whether in-store or online, maximizing the effectiveness of your local advertising efforts.

2. Increase bids during store hours

In a similar vein, consider using bid modifications to enhance your bids throughout your store’s operating hours and on days when it is open.

By doing so, you will increase the exposure of your local inventory when potential buyers who are actively looking for products with high purchase intent visit your physical location.

3. Use the ‘In-Store Pickup’ and ‘Pickup Today’ attributes.

Displaying ‘In-Store Pickup’ and ‘Pickup Today’ labels alongside your LIAs increases CTR and the likelihood of producing a sale. These labels clearly indicate to potential clients that the product they are interested in is not only available but also conveniently placed nearby.

The biggest advantage for a buyer is that a desired item can be acquired with ease on the same day, eliminating the wait involved with shipment.

4. Regularly maintain and optimize your LIAs

Local inventory advertising must be continually checked and maintained to ensure that it remains current and gives relevant information to searchers. Use a third-party feed management tool to ensure that product IDs are consistent across several sources.

You can also insert other data to augment feeds and local stores, such as sale prices and ‘limited availability’ or ‘on display to order’ status. Third-party solutions are the most efficient approach to keeping up with regular feed maintenance, saving money, and improving overall outcomes.

5. Monitoring LIAs and Data Analysis

Google LIAs are categorized as campaigns in and of themselves in Google Ads, which means that you can track their performance separately from other efforts. Navigate to your shopping campaign in Google Ads, click on a segment, and then select ‘Click type.’

This will display online product performance, as shown in the screenshot below, as well as the performance of local inventory advertisements if they are enabled. This is a fantastic place to start for tracking your LIAs’ success and evaluating performance data to better understand their impact in comparison to other Google Ads campaigns.

How do local inventory ads and listings show across Google properties?

Google search

Every day, Google Search logs hundreds of millions of search queries connected to shopping. Retailers can show their inventory and vital business data to local customers ready to buy with Google Local Inventory Listings and Ads.

Responses via Google Assistant

When consumers ask, “Hey, Google, find ___ near me,” Local Inventory Ads provide replies to Google Assistant queries so it may provide them relevant product and store information. Google Assistant can even add goods to their shopping list and assist customers with directions to your store, therefore helping them not only with nearby product searches.

Google Photos

Consumers use Google Images to gain ideas about products and to verify the items that show up there fit their intended usage. LIAs let businesses place their local product availability and product photos in prominent territory inside Google Photos, therefore optimizing their intended consumer purchase path.

Conclusion

Google Local Inventory Ads combine online and in-store buying, helping businesses with physical locations increase product visibility. Not only that, but they may do it while consumers are actively looking nearby, allowing them to reach people with high buying intent.

Setting them up requires some initial technical work, and continual administration is required to maintain LIAs; nonetheless, they have been shown to improve overall performance for shops, making the effort worthwhile.