Google is making every effort to improve their local offerings during these difficult times. They have now added new local business attributes and Smart Bidding for store sales.
Local campaigns are an automated campaign type for small businesses. They serve ads across Google Maps, Search, YouTube and the Display Network. Ad attributes allow businesses to highlight key points about their business. Google have added new attributes such as curbside pick up and no-contact delivery. These should make local ads more prominent and more effective.
As well as these attributes, Google is allowing stores to promote incoming inventory. They have implemented a new badge which indicates how soon a product may be available. This pick up later function is managed using rules for local inventory feeds. This could be great for the Christmas period when customers are wanting to shop locally but still safely.
Google had already implemented Smart Bidding for store visits. However, they’re improving this to target store sales. Instead of optimising against foot traffic, this new bidding method will optimise against actual store sales. To be eligible advertisers need to meet certain in-store transaction volumes.
Overall, these new tools could benefit businesses throughout the Christmas period and the pandemic.