How to Show Ads on Google Maps for Businesses in the USA | Get More Customers and Calls with Google Local Ads

Learn how to promote your business on Google Maps using Google Ads and Local Performance Max campaigns in this article.

This article is focused on Local Businesses, primarily service companies that operate in specific areas, selling particular services to users who live within a certain distance from the company’s office or service area. Attracting qualified leads for such businesses is especially important.

This is one of the key factors when potential customers choose a contractor. For example, when someone needs a roofer, plumber, locksmith, etc., a company located closer to the customer is more advantageous than one that’s far away.

That’s why it’s crucial to promote your business on Google Maps. Some people search for services in Google Search, while others enter the same query directly in the Google Maps application.

It’s critically important to complete verification in GMB (now Google Business Profile); otherwise, the methods described in this article simply won’t work.

Let’s assume you’ve already set up your GMB account, completed verification, and now want to get additional leads through Google Maps advertising.

If you link your GMB with your Google Ads account, your company’s Google Maps card will appear in search advertising.

Here’s what it looks like:

When a user enters the query “plumber in Boston,” after the regular search ads, they also see cards from Google Maps. This block of cards is called the Local Pack, and it also displays advertisements.

To make your company’s card appear in the Local Pack, you need to connect your GMB with your Google Ads account.

It appears on maps through several services:

• Google Local Service Ads (Google Guaranteed)
  Inside this separate advertising account, you verify your profile through GMB, and your ads will appear on Google Maps. Until summer 2024, Google LSA ads were only shown in search results.
• Local Performance Max campaigns
  These ads are launched through the regular Google Ads account and are a special type of PMax campaign.

This is an advertising campaign that combines ads in Search, Display, YouTube, Google Discover, Gmail, and other Google services. Many businesses are interested in how much Google Ads costs when using this format.

These services also include advertising on Google Maps. If you launch a PMax campaign and configure it properly, your ads will appear on maps.

First, make sure you have a Google Ads account and a verified GMB account.

You need to connect these accounts to each other. First, while in the Google Ads console, go to Tools → Data manager where you’ll find several services that Google offers to connect. Among them will be the Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) that we need.

In our Google Ads account, Google Business Profile is already connected. To connect Google Ads with GBP, you need to scroll down to “Featured Products” and select GBP.

Important: when connecting, you must be an administrator of both the advertising account and GBP. If you use different accounts, the connection won’t work. Google needs to see that your email in Google Ads matches the email registered to your Google Business Profile and has administrator privileges.

After you’ve connected your Google Ads and GBP accounts and launched some advertising in the Google Ads account, within 3-4 weeks (usually faster) a new conversion called “Get Directions” will automatically appear in the conversions list (Goals → Conversions → Summary). This is a conversion action that happens when a user interacts with your profile on Google Maps. That is, when a user clicks on the “Get Directions” button, Google counts this as a conversion.

Thanks to this conversion, you can transform a regular Performance Max into a Local Performance Max.

If you simply launch a PMax campaign, it will default to showing in search, YouTube, third-party sites, but it’s important that this advertising also appears on Google Maps.

Regular PMax is also effective, but for Local Business, we usually launch both (Local PMax and regular).

Go to your PMax campaign in Google Ads (Campaigns → Asset Groups → Select campaign), and in the top right corner (marked in the screenshot below) you’ll see the placements where your ads are displaying:

Google Maps will be listed in the placements:

Go to your campaign settings:

Then go to Conversion Goals and select Get Directions as your macro-conversion, then save:

Once you add Get Directions, your regular Performance Max transforms into a Local Performance Max.

We recommend launching both Local PMax and regular PMax campaigns simultaneously because one campaign focuses on offline traffic, while the other focuses on online conversions. Together, they expand reach, increase effectiveness, and improve overall advertising ROI.