A few days ago, Google announced a new change in Google Search Ads. Mainly Google Maps as an ad placement will be treated differently.
On Google, ads could appear on 2 placements: Google search, and the Google Search partners.
Google Search is the most known and most used search engine but most of the Search partners are unknown. Only a limited list of partners such as Ask.com and nytimes.com are known to the public. Other well known search partners were Youtube or AOL, but they already retracted from the search network in the past. These partner websites show Google search ads like you’ve set them up in AdWords, and get a share of the revenue in return for displaying your ad.
Google Maps, was one of the Google search partners, until the recent changes. This doesn’t mean that Ads will not appear on Google Maps anymore. Instead of being considered as a Search Partner, Google Maps is now accessible through Location extensions in your campaigns.
All you need to do is create a Google My Business account, set up your locations, and link it with your Google AdWords account. When the two platforms are linked, you can easily add Location Extensions to your campaigns by using the information from Google My Business.
When a person is looking for your brand, or business related keywords in Google Maps, your ads will automatically appear on the left (desktop) or in the search results (Mobile) on Google Maps.
This change is a great advantage to get more control over your campaigns as you can decide what locations will or will not appear. Your ads will also appear easily when people are looking for directions to your nearest store, even before they left the house.
Author: Bart Van Nieuwenhuyse
