Local Inventory Ads help businesses link local listings to store inventory. With Local Inventory Ads, you can showcase your products and store information to nearby shoppers. When shoppers click on a brand’s Local Inventory Ad, they arrive at a Google-hosted webpage called the Local Storefront. The Local Storefront is where shoppers can view in-store inventory, store hours, and directions. Local Inventory Ads also surface sponsored product listings, so brands can appear at the top of searches for the latest seasonal trends.Local Inventory Ads cause retailers’ listings to surface for product searches, which creates a hugely expanded set of opportunities for brick-and-mortar stores to rank for high-intent keywords.If your brand sells products inside physical stores, then you will want to explore Local Inventory Ads. Local Inventory Ads bring brick-and-mortar stores online and let local shoppers know when stores in their areas have the items they are looking for. Local Inventory Ads also provide brands with measurable performance that isn’t possible through offline advertising. At a glance, retailers can quickly see the impact that digital ads are having on foot traffic and in-store sales.Traditionally, one of the biggest challenges with Local Inventory Ads has been keeping online and offline inventory up to date. A number of third-party companies have stepped in with tools to make it easier for retailers to sync online and offline inventory data. Google purchased one of those startups, Pointy, in early 2020. With Pointy’s hardware, or via supported point-of-sale devices like Clover and Square, brands can adjust inventory automatically as items are purchased online and offline. For example, when a customer purchases the last pair of headphones at a retailer’s brick-and-mortar store, that item is automatically pulled from the retailer’s online inventory.To learn more about using Local Inventory Ads, read Google’s Local Inventory Ads Onboarding Guide.
