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If you want to show shoppers your in-store inventory, directions to your shop, opening hours, and more after clicking on your ad or free listing, you want to use local inventory ads.
With local inventory ads, shoppers arrive on a Google-hosted page for your store after clicking your ad or free listing. This Google-hosted page is also called the local storefront. Nearby shoppers who are searching with Google get to see your products and store information.
If you are a merchant with a local store, you can take advantage of the local inventory ads by promoting your in-store inventory by bringing your local store online with the Google-hosted local storefront. You can also measure performance by monitoring your ads and free local listings’ influence on your online and in-store sales.
How to set it up?
- Set up your accounts
To enable local inventory ads, you need a Merchant Center account, a Google My Business (GMB) Locations account, and a Google Ads account.
Chances are you already have a Merchant Center and Google Ads account. If not, Shoparize CSS is happy to help you with this. Feel free to contact us at css@shoparize.com.
If you already have a Google My Business Locations account, you can skip this step. If not, please follow the instructions on this Google support page to make a location group, which is the first step to create a Google My Business Locations account.
Next, you need to upload your store information in bulk by creating your bulk upload spreadsheet. You can follow the steps in this Google support page to create your spreadsheet.
After setting up your Google My Business Locations account, link the account and your Google Ads account to your Merchant Center. Also, make sure to link your Merchant Center and Google Ads account. If you need more information about linking these two accounts, please read our article about it.
- Enable local inventory ads
To enable local inventory ads in your Merchant Center, follow these steps:
- After signing into your Merchant Center account, click Growth
- Then, click on Manage programs
- Find the local inventory ads card and click Get started
- Now you can choose the country where your stores are located
- Add business information
You can add the name of your store when you are setting up your account. This is the name that shoppers will see in your local inventory ads.
- Link your Google My Business account and select location group
To link your Google My Business and Google Ads account, please follow the steps in this Google article.
After linking your accounts, you need to select a location group. The location group will be chosen automatically if only one Google My Business location group is available across all linked GMB accounts. If this is not the case, you can also manually add business location groups. Please follow the steps at the bottom of the Google article just mentioned to complete this step.
- Feeds
First, you need to create a primary feed. If you already have a primary feed, you can opt-in for local inventory ads via the primary feed settings in the Merchant Center. It is recommended to submit both of your online and local product offers in a single feed.
If you do not have a primary feed yet, you can create one in the Merchant Center using our article about this topic. You can also visit this Google article for an example of a primary feed for local inventory ads.
Next, you will want to create a local product inventory feed. You can do so by following the steps in this Google article.
You will also want to register and submit local feeds. Your local feeds probably reside in your primary feed. If your primary feed is already registered, you do not have to register it again. If you have not registered your feed yet, you can follow the steps in this Google article to register.
- Your “About” page
This step is for merchants in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland only. If you are not located in one of these countries, you can skip this step. If you are, please follow the steps in this Google article to verify your About page.
- Inventory verification
The inventory verification check helps Google verify if the products in your physical store match the inventory information you have submitted. To set up inventory verification, you need to submit your inventory verification contact, which is a person who works with Google to coordinate verification.
After submitting your contact, you need to request the inventory verification. Google reviews your submitted feeds. This can take up to 7 days.
The steps you need to take for inventory verification need to be done in the Merchant Center. For step-by-step instructions, please visit this Google article.
- Shopping campaigns
The last step is to enable local products in your Shopping campaigns. You can do this by logging into your Google Ads account and navigating to your existing Shopping campaign.
Follow these steps to enable ads for products sold in local stores (this works the same way for Smart Shopping campaigns):
Step 1: navigate to Additional settings in Settings after clicking on your Shopping campaign in Google Ads.
Step 2: Additional Shopping campaign settings will appear. Find Local products in your Shopping campaign settings.
Step 3: Enable ads for products sold in local stores and click Save.
These are all the steps you need to set up local inventory ads. If you have any questions or need our help with your local inventory ads, please feel free to contact us at css@shoparize.com.
