Running a Google Ads search campaign can be a really great way to target your ideal customers as they are searching for you and what you offer. It can reap brilliant rewards but it’s well known that running a campaign in London can be costly if not managed and set up correctly. Let’s have a look at the most important steps when running a local Google Ads campaign in London. 

 

Running Google Ads in London 

When running any Google Ads campaign, one of the most important elements is your target keywords. These are the words that you want to show your ad for when searched. As a London Google Ads agency, we start our campaign creation process with in-depth keyword research. 

This research allows us to understand which keywords are the best to target for each client based on volumes, competition and estimated cost per click. 

Broad keywords will have high volumes but will be very competitive, especially in such a big city like London. This is where local campaigns are a winner for a lot of businesses looking to run Google Ad Campaigns in London. 

 

What are local campaigns?

A local Google Ads campaign targets keywords that mention location and/or use geographical targeting to show ads to people in particular locations. Adding a location to a keyword or phrase will lower the volume – but it will also be less competitive and have lower CPCs. For example Digital Marketing Agency” will have a higher volume but also higher CPC and competition than ‘Digital Marketing Agency Covent Garden”. The latter is a location-based keyword and would be used in a localised campaign.

Geographical targeting will also affect the competition and CPC of keywords, for example,  ‘Google Ads Agency” targeted to the whole of London will be much more competitive and have a higher CPC than if it was targeted just to Covent Garden or a small radius of Covent Garden. Building campaigns in this way can lower your costs and allows you to target people in exactly the locations you service. 

 

How to effectively run a local Google Ads campaign in London 

To effectively run your localised campaign in London, you will need to make use of all that Google has to offer in terms of extensions and targeting options. 

Firstly, decide on the areas that you want to target; Covent Garden, Carnaby, Westminster, Waterloo and Paddington, for example.

Once you know the locations you want to target, set up your campaigns with this targeting. 

Add in your location keywords and write your ad copy to match each location. You will want your headline to mention the location that it targets – for example, ‘Covent Garden’s Best Marketing Agency’. 

This ensures that the person searching for your keywords in your targeted locations will see ads that are highly relevant to their search. This will improve your click-through rates and quality scores. 

Secondly, make use of location extensions. These will display below your ad and will highlight your office location to the user. This will also increase the relevance of your ad and encourage the user to engage with your business. 

As well as location extensions, you can optimise your sitelink extensions to mention the locations too. So instead of ‘About Us’ as a link to your about page, ‘About Our Covent Garden Office’ would again increase the relevance and engagement on your localised campaigns. 

Finally, optimising your landing pages per location will help to improve the performance and effectiveness of your localised campaigns. If a user searches for ‘Covent Garden Marketing Agency’ and is shown a page that does not mention Covent Garden or have any content related to their search, they are less likely to convert on that page.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to build a separate landing page for each and every location – you can mention all your targeted locations within the content of the page and add in an interactive map of your service areas, which can also improve relevance. 

If you want to get the most out of your localised Google Ads campaigns, we suggest that you regularly spend time managing and optimising them to perform better – using the data you collect to make well-informed optimisation decisions.

Learn more about our Google Ad Management services or speak to one of our experts in London today!