Google adds Local customer optimization to Performance Max

Google published a new help document detailing Local customer optimization for Performance Max campaigns with store goals, a feature designed to prioritize ads for people who are nearby and ready to visit or contact a business.

The migration of serving ads to people who are nearby to Performance Max was announced last month.

What’s happening. Local customer optimization helps Performance Max campaigns reach users who are actively planning trips, navigating or searching for nearby businesses across Google Maps, Waze and local formats on Google Search.

According to Google, the feature aims to capture high-intent local customers at the moment they’re most likely to visit a store, request directions or make contact.

Merchant Center isn’t supported. One key limitation is that Local customer optimization isn’t compatible with Merchant Center.

Performance Max campaigns using products from Merchant Center or campaigns with online conversion goals can’t use the feature. Advertisers must remove Merchant Center product feeds or create a separate store-goals campaign to enable Local customer optimization.

How to enable it. Advertisers creating a new Performance Max campaign for store goals will see a new Local customer optimization toggle during campaign setup after selecting offline conversion goals such as store visits, directions or store sales.

For existing campaigns, the setting can be found under Budget and bidding optimization within campaign settings. Once enabled and saved, Google will begin optimizing delivery toward nearby, high-intent users. The feature can also be turned off at any time to return the campaign to standard Performance Max behavior.

Why we care. Until recently, advertisers couldn’t specifically optimize Performance Max campaigns for people who were actively navigating, trip-planning or searching nearby with immediate local intent. Local customer optimization brings those placements into Performance Max for store-goal campaigns, giving brick-and-mortar businesses a new way to reach high-intent customers across Google Maps, Waze and local Search formats from within a single campaign.

Bottom line. Google’s new Local customer optimization feature helps Performance Max campaigns prioritize nearby customers with strong local intent—but only for store-goal campaigns that don’t use Merchant Center product feeds.