Create and manage location groups

Location groups make it easier to promote nearby business locations within your ads. You group together sets of business locations and create ads based on their location details in your campaigns or ad groups. Location groups also allow you to target your ads based on those business locations.

This article shows you how to use Location Manager to build and manage a location group using custom locations from your Business Profile account or common chain businesses.

Instructions

1. Create a location group

Select locations from Business Profile

You can build a location group using a custom set of locations from your Business Profile. You can either select specific locations or filter for locations that match specific criteria.

Custom locations from Business Profile can only be added to location assets. You won’t be able to add these custom locations to your affiliate location assets. Affiliate location assets are designed to promote your products sold at locations owned by another business.

Select specific locations

Go to Location Manager under Shared librarydrop-down in the Toolsmenu.
Select the Location groupstab using your Business Profile account.
Select the plus button.
If the radio button next to Pick your locationsisn’t selected, select it.
Use the search bar to search locations and select the check box next to the locations you want to include in this location group.
- Optional: You can click the X button next to your picked locations to remove them from the list, or Clear allto empty the list.
Select Save.

Select locations that match a filter

Go to Location Manager under Shared librarydrop-down in the Toolsmenu.
Select the Location groupstab.
Select the plus button.
Provide a name for your location group.
Select the radio button next to Filter by label.
Insert the name of your label next to “Label contains”.
- If your Business Profile doesn’t have any labels, learn more about labels in Business Profile .
- Optional: You can click the ADD LABELbutton to add additional labels to your filter criteria.
All locations for the label are now included in this location group.
- If you add or remove locations from this label in the future, the same change will happen to this location group.
Select Save.

Select locations from a chain of businesses

You can build a location group from some or all locations in a chain of businesses. These locations are provided by Google, and don’t require you to create a Business Profile account.

You can add these location groups to your location assets or affiliate location assets within your search, display, and video campaigns. Keep in mind, you’ll have to first create location assets or affiliate location assets .

Location group supports the following filtering functionalities:

With location assets:
- Pick your locations
- Filter by Business Profile label
- Upload locations in bulk
With Affiliate location assets:
- Pick your locations
- Select by chain
- Upload locations in bulk

Important: Please allow about one day for locations to be synced fully into your location assets or affiliate location assets before creating the location group. You can check the status of your locations by looking at the location assets report. If the status of the locations are “Approved”, it means that they are synced.

Select specific locations within a chain

Go to Location Manager under Shared librarydrop-down in the Toolsmenu.
Select the Location groupstab.
Select the plus button.
Provide a name for your location group.
If the radio button next to "Pick your locations" isn’t selected, select it.
Select the chain you want to search for locations.
Use the search bar to search locations and click the check box next to the locations you want to include in this location group.
- Optional: You can click the X button next to your picked locations to remove them from the list, or Clear all to empty the list.
Select Save.

Select all locations from a chain

Go to Location Manager under Shared librarydrop-down in the Toolsmenu.
Select the Location groupstab.
Select the plus button.
Provide a name for your location group.
If the radio button next to "Pick your locations" isn’t selected, select it.
Select one or more chains.
- All locations for the selected chains are now included in this location group.
- If store locations are added or removed from these chains in the future, these changes will be reflected in this location group.
Select Save.

Select locations from a chain by attributes

Go to Location Manager under Shared librarydrop-down in the Toolsmenu.
Select the Location groupstab.
Select the plus button.
Provide a name for your location group.
If the radio button next to "Select by attributes" isn’t selected, select it.
Select one or more chains.
Select one or more attributes.
- Note that as we are adding attributes to more chain locations, certain chains may not have any attributes. Review the matched locations under “Sample locations”.
Select Save.

2. Manage location groups

Steps to manage location groups

Go to Location Manager under Shared librarydrop-down in the Toolsmenu.
Select the Location groupstab.
Select the name of the location group to view it.
- Optional: If any of your group’s locations have been disapproved, the location’s status will read “disapproved” and the reason for the disapproval will show under the status. You can click on either text to view why the location has been disapproved. You can then select Read the policyto learn more or Edit in Business Profile managerto fix the issue.
Select the name of your location group.
You can now edit your locations list on the right either:
- Removing the locations by checking the box next to those locations and selecting Removefrom the blue belt that appears. Note: You can also delete location groups entirely from your account, which will impact any campaigns using those groups.
- Add new locations by selecting the plus iconto curate or use labels to set new locations. If you set new locations using labels, you can also add additional labels to filter specific locations.
Select Saveto apply your changes.

Create location groups in bulk

You can create location groups in bulk using a .CSV or .xlsx file. You can use these templates to format your files: CSV | Excel

Keep in mind: The format of the file must be in exactly the same formats as in the templates. It’s recommended to download templates and then add in locations.

The following are required fields if you’re using an address:

Business name
Address line
City and country code

State, postal code, phone number are optional fields.

If you’re using an asset ID, only the asset ID is required.

Use the following steps to upload your file and create location groups in bulk:

Go to Location Manager under Shared librarydrop-down in the Toolsmenu.
Select the Location groupstab.
Select the plus button.
Select Upload locations in bulk.

Choose a name for your location group and click Select a file from your computer. The location group will be applied automatically.

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