Why Google’s Going Local
Why?
Because it is the best market to focus on and Webrageous Studios suggests that all PPC Advertisers follow in Google’s footsteps by making more of an effort to consider the importance of local PPC advertising if they aren’t already doing so.
Google provides a huge number of tools and features for PPC Advertisers and PPC Managers to take advantage of in order to attract and provide services for that local audience. The list of tools is endless, but includes the following as a rough idea to begin with:
- Google Place Search
- Google Places upgrades
- Google Maps for Mobile and Navigation
- Google local product search
- Google expandable map advertisements
- Click2Call advertisements
- Call Tracking
- Google AdWords location extensions
The important thing to recognize is WHY Google believes that going local is such an effective step to take in terms of ROI.
Lots of PPC Managers believe that local advertising is a little harder to track since a lot of the conversions are going to take place in store and could have been prompted from any form of advertising, including word of mouth. Local advertising therefore makes optimization and PPC Campaign improvement ideas a lot more difficult to implement as well.
Also, there is a general and misguided belief that local somehow is synonymous with Grandma and Grandpa; that local means “small time” and that bigger businesses, therefore, who are really focusing on Branding Campaigns, would find local to be an even bigger waste of time.
This is simply not true.
Around 70% – 90% of customers buying branded products in store are customers who have first searched for the information they required on the Internet. Therefore, the online market for the local audience is huge when you club it together with the percentage of people who buy things from local suppliers directly via the Internet too!
So, why does Google bother with local? Why is it creating so many features and tools for PPC Advertisers to take advantage of within the local market?
The answer is because the local market is HUGE and the local market creates LOYAL Customers; loyal for life!
There are so many people out there today with smartphones who are connected to the Internet 24 hours a day and who look for things on the spot in order to find what they need in the closest store to them as possible. Today’s internet user is looking for the local products and the local services.
Therefore, even if it is a little more difficult to optimize local campaigns and to track the conversion rate of local advertising, the importance and effective nature of this area of PPC Advertising must not be underestimated nor ignored.
Get more customers! Get local!
