Map Pack Ads for Service Area Business

[Hassan]

Hi, I wondered if anyone could shed light on Local Map Pack ads for Service Area Businesses. Is it even possible for my ads to show in the Map Pack for my Service Area Business? Am I better off reverting back to showing a physical address in order to get that visibility in the map pack? Your insights would be greatly valued. Thank you.

 

[Contractor]

The first part of your post makes it sound like you are speaking about the paid ads in the local listings. The second part sounds like you are talking about the normal unpaid local listing. Can you clarify please?

Also, does your SAB have a physical location with signage and open for customers to visit?

 

[Hassan]

Hi, thanks for your reply. We are an on-site computer/tech support service for households. I’m referring to the paid ads showing in the map pack (local pack ads). We are a service area business but we do have an office address. We’ve recently moved to hiding our physical address and switched to a pure service area business. In theory, customers could visit us (if we showed our physical address), to get their computer/tech repaired but we discourage it as we are a call-out service.

 

[RattlingTram]

Hi, thanks for your reply. We are an on-site computer/tech support service for households. I’m referring to the paid ads showing in the map pack (local pack ads). We are a service area business but we do have an office address. We’ve recently moved to hiding our physical address and switched to a pure service area business. In theory, customers could visit us (if we showed our physical address), to get their computer/tech repaired but we discourage it as we are a call-out service.

Ordinary Google search ads are eligible to run in the map pack, but you have NO CONTROL over this.

Google doesn't show map pack ads on every map pack search, so in the case of a lot of searches, there is no actual ad inventory to target.

Any clicks for click types "get directions", "mobile click to call", "get location details" almost certainly came from a map pack listing, so reporting on these click types is your best way of understanding how often you are appearing in map pack.

Where it DOES decide to show ads, it's an ordinary search ad-based auction, but there are a few things you can do to give yourself the best chance of appearing.
- have an enabled account-level location extension for a verified Google My Business listing in your Ads account
- Make sure your GMB listing is optimised per all the usual local SEO practices
- Use location targeting and bid by location
- Make sure you're targeting all the relevant keywords you want to rank in map pack for.

Best of luck with it!

 

[Tony Wang]

As for your original question, you need to enable the location extension for Local Pack ads, so no, you won't be able to have those ads with a hidden address.

But as RattlingTram mentions, you have no control over when they show up anyway, so I consider them more of a "bonus" to running regular search ads rather than something you should specifically try to get.

In other words, showing your address is probably not worth doing just to get those Pack ads, especially if you don't want people coming to you.