Location extensions add your address, the distance and a directions link to Google Ads, drawn from your Google My Business listing. They help businesses people visit in person, provided the listing behind them is accurate.

An ad that says where you are

A text ad says what you sell and links to your website. For a shop, a clinic or a restaurant, it leaves out the question a person searching on a phone often cares about most: how far away is it?

Location extensions answer that. With your Google My Business listing linked, an ad can show your address, the distance from the searcher and a link for directions, beneath the headline and text.

AdWords became Google Ads last month and some screens have moved, but the extension works as it did. It still takes its details from the listing, not from anything typed into the ad.

What the extension adds

The fourth is the one many advertisers miss. Without location extensions, a search campaign's ads generally do not appear when people search in Google Maps, which is often where someone looks for a shop nearby.

When it helps

Location extensions earn their place when the searcher is going to come to you: a shop, a clinic, a restaurant, a showroom, anywhere the visit is the purchase.

For those businesses, distance is part of the decision. Somebody choosing between two similar ads may well pick the shop ten minutes away over the one across town, and the extension tells them which is which.

They help less for a trade that goes to the customer. A plumber's address tells the searcher nothing useful, and some trades work from home and would rather not advertise the street.

Linking the listing

The extension needs a link between the Google Ads account and the Google My Business account that holds the listing. It is set up from the extensions section of Google Ads, by choosing that account.

If different Google accounts run the ads and the listing, the listing's owner has to approve the link, or add the advertising account as a manager. The locations usually appear within a day.

A business with several locations can choose which ones show with which campaigns, so an ad for one store does not carry the address of another.

If nobody knows which Google account owns the listing, that is the first problem to solve, before any advertising.

The listing becomes part of the ad

Because the extension draws on the listing, every mistake in the listing is now one you pay for.

An old address sends people who tapped for directions to the wrong place. A pin on the plaza's main entrance, when the shop is round the back, leaves them circling the lot.

Hours matter too. A searcher who drives to a locked door on a holiday Monday blames the business, so keep special hours on the listing current; Google My Business lets you set them in advance.

Changes to the listing reach the ads, but not instantly. Check the extension after any change to the address.

A worked example

A bead shop in Vernon sells beads, findings and stringing supplies, and runs evening jewellery classes. Customers drive in from towns an hour away, and many first find it by searching on a phone.

Its Google Ads campaign had run for two years with plain text ads, and the address appeared nowhere in them.

A searcher in a neighbouring town could not tell whether the shop was a short drive away or an online store in another province.

Before linking anything, the owner checked the listing. It still carried the unit number from before the shop moved two doors along the street, and the pin sat on the old storefront.

Once the listing was corrected, it was linked to the ads account, and the ads began showing the address and the distance on phones. Searchers in the surrounding towns can now see how far away the shop is.

Clicks for directions are reported separately when the campaign's results are split by click type, so the shop can see how many searchers went straight to the map.

What it does for local searches

The extension does not change which areas your ads reach. The location targeting in the campaign settings decides that.

What it changes is what the searcher sees. On searches that name a town or say near me, a visible address answers the first question before anyone clicks.

It also ties the advertising to the same details as the listing and the website, so a searcher who sees the ad, then the map, then the site meets one address throughout.

Counting what follows

A click for directions is charged like a click on the headline, but it never reaches your website, so conversions counted on the site will miss it.

Split the campaign's results by click type to see directions and calls apart from website visits. For a walk-in business, directions clicks are a fair sign the ad is doing its job.

Google can measure store visits from ads, but only for advertisers with a great deal of traffic and several locations. A single shop has to ask new customers how they found it.

The counter-case

For a business that never sees customers in person, location extensions add little, and a home-based trade may sensibly leave them off.

A business with an awkward address, such as a second-floor unit in a busy plaza, needs the listing's pin and the website's directions to be exact first, or the directions link sends people somewhere confusing.

And the extension is not guaranteed to show; Google decides ad by ad whether to include it.

But for any business people visit, link the listing, make sure it is right, and let the ad say where you are.

Before you link it

  1. Check the listing's address and pin on a phone.
  2. Find the Google account that owns the listing.
  3. Correct the hours, including holiday hours.
  4. Link the listing from the extensions section.
  5. Choose which locations each campaign shows.
  6. Split results by click type each month.
  7. Ask new customers how they found you.

Step one comes first because the extension repeats whatever the listing says. A wrong address in an ad is worse than none: the customer pays with a wasted drive, and the business pays for the click.

The phone number that can sit beside the address raises its own question, covered in call extensions and the phone nobody answers.

Frequently asked questions

What do location extensions add to an ad?

Your address, often the distance from the searcher, a directions link and access to your listing's details, drawn from Google My Business. They also let ads appear in Google Maps.

Which businesses benefit most from them?

Businesses people visit in person: shops, clinics, restaurants and showrooms. Trades that go to the customer gain little, and home-based trades may prefer to leave them off.

How do I set up location extensions?

Link the Google My Business account that holds your listing to Google Ads from the extensions section. If different accounts manage each, the listing's owner approves the link.

Why does the listing need checking first?

Because the extension repeats whatever the listing says. An old address or a misplaced pin sends people you paid to reach on a drive to the wrong place.

Are clicks for directions charged?

Yes, like clicks on the headline. They never reach your website, so split results by click type to see them, and ask at the counter how new customers heard of you.

Do extensions change which areas ads reach?

No. Location targeting in the campaign decides that. The extension changes what searchers see, and adds Google Maps to the places the ad can appear.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

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