Google shipped a local ads feature and told almost nobody
A new Google Ads setting bids harder for people physically near your shop. We opened the twelve help pages that surround it. Two mention it in English, one in Romanian, and the guide you would actually read while optimising that campaign type mentions it not at all.
What is new. Google Ads now carries a setting called Local customer optimization inside Performance Max campaigns for store goals. It prioritises people who are near your business and ready to visit or contact you, and it steers budget towards Google Maps, Waze and local formats on Search.
Why it is not for everyone. It does not work with online campaign goals, and it does not work in campaigns carrying Merchant Center products. The line that costs money sits in a note under a step: with Merchant Center products in the campaign, the incompatibility holds even if the toggle is turned on.
What you get from reading. Whether your account can host it at all, the four conversion goals it accepts, and why a shop that also sells online needs two campaigns rather than one clever setting.
- You can check tonight whether you own a campaign type where the panel can even appear.
- You will know what breaks when you later add an online goal on top.
- You get the full list of accepted conversion goals to compare against what you ticked.
- You get our count of where Google documented it, on a set anyone can reproduce.
What this page is about
A setting inside Google Ads, in Performance Max campaigns for store goals. Not about Merchant Center, which appears here only as an incompatibility, and not about Local Services Ads — the help page we read does not mention Google's guaranteed-services product anywhere.
Most advertising features arrive with a blog post, a support note and three weeks of trade coverage. This one arrived as a single help page. We went looking for how a shop owner would find it on their own, and the answer turned out to be more interesting than the feature.
We counted where Google wrote it down
On 12 August, Barry Schwartz spotted a new Google Ads help page. Rather than repeat the news, we measured how discoverable it is from inside the product.
On 13 August 2026 we downloaded, from our own server, all twelve Google Ads help pages that the new page and its parent link to — the complete neighbourhood someone would walk through starting from their own campaign. Each was fetched twice, with ?hl=en and ?hl=ro, and searched for the exact string Local customer optimization.
| Google Ads help page | English | Romanian |
|---|---|---|
| About Local customer optimization… | yes | yes, but untranslated |
| About Performance Max for store goals | once, in “Related links” | absent entirely |
| Optimization tips for Performance Max for store goals | no | no |
| How to advertise in Google Maps | no | no |
| About location assets | no | no |
| Create and manage location groups | no | no |
| Step 1: Create a campaign and choose a goal | no | no |
| About conversion goals | no | no |
| Updating your conversion goals | no | no |
| About Performance Max campaigns | no | no |
| Ask Advisor in Google Ads (beta) | no | no |
| About the Google Ads Help Center | no | no |
Twelve pages downloaded on 13 August 2026 and searched on the exact string. Two of twelve in English, one of twelve in Romanian. Google may well have placed it on pages outside this set; what we can report is what these twelve contained that day.
Three rows deserve to be pulled out. The optimisation guide for this exact campaign type does not mention the setting. The page about advertising in Google Maps — the primary surface the feature sends budget to — does not mention it. And both pages about the locations you must select at step six stay silent too. Every route a self-directed advertiser would take goes past it.
The localisation finding is sharper than we expected, and it takes two commands to confirm. Fetch the new page with ?hl=ro and the interface comes back in Romanian — the feedback button reads “A fost util?” — while the article body stays English and the document's language attribute remains lang="en". The parent page, by contrast, is fully translated and returns lang="ro". Except that in the Romanian version of it, the link to the new feature does not exist at all. Not untranslated: missing.
We cannot tell you why, only what we measured. Localised help pages usually trail the original. The working conclusion is the same one we reached during this week's Travel campaign migration: when something new lands in Google Ads, read the documentation in English.
What Local customer optimization is
Local customer optimization is a setting inside Performance Max campaigns for store goals that prioritises reaching people who are close to, or interested in, your business area and ready to act immediately — to visit or to get in touch. It is not a campaign type, not a bidding strategy, and it has no budget of its own. It is one switch inside a campaign type you either already run or you do not.
Google's own wording:
Local customer optimization is a feature within Performance Max campaigns for store goals that allows you to prioritize reaching potential customers who are close to or interested in your business area and ready to take action immediately such as visit or contact.
The second sentence is the one worth reading slowly, because it names the moment:
This campaign feature is intended to reach potential customers at the most critical moment when they are actively navigating, trip-planning, or searching for locations on Google Maps, Waze or Google Search for a service in a specific area of interest.
Three verbs, and none of them describes someone comparing three online shops in a browser tab. Navigating means driving right now. Trip-planning means working out the route. Searching for locations means looking for a place, not a product. That distinction is the whole boundary of the feature, and it explains the conflict two sections down.
The four conversion goals it accepts
The documentation lists the conversion goals you confirm for a store-goals campaign: store visits, store sales, contacts (Google hosted) and directions (Google hosted). “Google hosted” means the action happens on Google's own surfaces — someone taps the phone number on your listing, or asks for directions to you — rather than on your website.
That changes how you read results. If you have been measuring success in submitted forms, this campaign reports a different class of event, produced somewhere your web analytics never sees. It is not a flaw in the campaign; it is an expectations problem, and it is far cheaper to settle before the campaign runs than inside the month-end report.
Where the money goes: Maps, Waze, local Search
The second benefit Google lists says where budget travels once the switch is on: towards locally tailored ads on channels such as Google Maps, Waze and local formats on Search. It is a short list and an unusual one, because Waze rarely comes up in a small advertiser's account at all.
It is worth being blunt about what does not follow. Google publishes no split of budget across those surfaces, no reach estimate, and no cost-per-visit figure on this page. It names the channels and stops. Any percentage you see attributed to this feature did not come from its documentation.
What can be said is that the move has a clear logic for one kind of business. If you sell something consumed where you are — a meal, a haircut, a service, a night's stay — then distance genuinely is the main purchase criterion, and a system that bids more for someone two kilometres away than for someone twenty does exactly what you would do by hand if you could.
The toggle you can switch on for nothing
The incompatibility note sits high on the page and is short:
Note: Local customer optimization is not compatible with online campaign goals and Performance Max campaigns with products from Merchant Center.
So far, an ordinary limitation. The expensive part is further down, tucked into the step list for campaigns that already exist:
Note: if the selected campaign is advertising products from a Merchant Center account, it will not be compatible with local customer optimization even if the toggle is turned on. Instead, consider selecting a different campaign or creating a new one.
Read the last eight words again. Even if the toggle is turned on. The interface lets you enable a setting that will not apply. No error, no blocked save, no warning — and unless you happened to read a help page published the day before, you walk away believing the feature is live. A green switch and no effect.
Open the campaign → Settings → the Budget and bidding optimization section. If the Local customer optimization panel is there, immediately look at the campaign's product source. If “Advertiser products from a Merchant Center account” is ticked, that switch is decoration. The fix in the documentation is not a setting — it is a separate campaign.
The consequence is structural, not cosmetic. A retailer selling both on the street and online cannot cover both with one Performance Max campaign. Either it carries a feed for online sales, or it carries store goals with local optimisation. Wanting both means two campaigns, two budgets and two reports — worth knowing before promising anyone that it all fits in one.
Turning it on, in panel order
For a new campaign the documented order runs: Campaigns → + New campaign → objective Local store visits and promotions → campaign type Performance Max → confirm the conversion goals, and only then does the panel with the switch appear. After that you select the business locations and, where relevant, untick the Merchant Center products.
For a campaign that already exists the path is shorter: Campaigns → the campaign → Settings → Budget and bidding optimization → the switch → Save. To return to an ordinary Performance Max campaign for store goals, turn the switch off and save again.
One detail bites if you miss it. To add an online goal to a campaign where the setting is on, you must switch the setting off first. If you do not, the conversion goals dialog opens with its options disabled and a message pointing you back to the local optimisation panel. At eleven at night that reads like a platform bug. It is documented behaviour.
What you need before you start
- A Performance Max campaign with store goals. Created by choosing the “Local store visits and promotions” objective. With only Search or ordinary PMax campaigns, there is nowhere for the panel to appear.
- Locations to target. From your Business Profile account, from linked location assets, or from affiliate location assets.
- Offline conversion goals, and only offline. The documentation is explicit that the setting surfaces when the campaign optimises to offline goals alone.
- No Merchant Center products in that campaign. If the account is linked to Merchant Center, untick “Advertiser products from a Merchant Center account” at creation.
- Patience with reporting. Store visits are not counted like a submitted form; they are modelled estimates with their own volume thresholds.
What a click costs where we run accounts
Feature descriptions are cheap. Here is what the traffic actually costs in the two markets we buy in, taken from Google Keyword Planner over July 2025 to June 2026, for the categories that have a physical address — which is to say the categories this feature is aimed at.
| Category | Reference query | Searches/month | Bid range |
|---|---|---|---|
| Car servicing | service auto cluj | 1,600 | 2.42–13.85 RON |
| Restaurants | restaurante cluj | 12,100 | 0.84–9.06 RON |
| Accommodation | hotel cluj | 3,600 | 1.27–9.05 RON |
| Hair and beauty | coafor cluj | 880 | 1.00–2.56 RON |
| Rural tourism | cabana cluj | 1,000 | 0.26–1.76 RON |
Google Keyword Planner bid estimates for Cluj-Napoca, July 2025 to June 2026, published in full in what a Google Ads click costs in Cluj, by category. These are auction estimates, not what you pay.
Read the table with the setting in mind. Restaurants have enormous demand and a cheap floor — the problem there is not price, it is paying for people searching from another city. Car servicing runs to 13.85 RON at the top, where every wasted impression hurts ten times as much. The most expensive click we measured in Cluj is not even in the table: the local query for vehicle inspection stations bids between 8.27 and 77.60 RON. Nobody drives an hour for a vehicle inspection, which makes it the textbook case for distance-aware bidding.
For scale across markets: our Romanian account averages 0.52 RON per click and our Italian one 0.15 €. Bid ceilings describe the top position, not your invoice.
What it does not do
- It does not work with online goals. Stated explicitly, twice, on the same page.
- It does not work over Merchant Center products — and unlike other incompatibilities, it does not stop you flipping the switch.
- It does not create your locations. Without a Business Profile or location assets there is nothing to select at step six.
- It does not promise a number. The page lists two benefits in words and zero estimates in percentages.
- It is not a campaign type. It is a setting inside one that has existed since 2022.
- It does not translate itself. On 13 August the Romanian version of the page serves English, and the translated parent page does not even link to it.
Before and after, in a table
| Aspect | PMax for store goals, until now | With Local customer optimization on |
|---|---|---|
| Who gets prioritised | Whoever the system finds, across all surfaces | People close to or interested in your area, ready to act |
| Where budget travels | All Google surfaces | Locally tailored ads on Maps, Waze and local Search formats |
| Conversion goals | Offline and online, mixed | Offline only; adding an online goal requires switching it off |
| Merchant Center products | Allowed in the same campaign | Incompatible — even with the toggle turned on |
| Where you change it | — | “Budget and bidding optimization”, in campaign settings |
| Reversibility | — | Switch off and save; the campaign returns to ordinary store-goals PMax |
Glossary, in two columns
| Term | What it means here |
|---|---|
| Local customer optimization | The new setting: prioritises nearby people ready to visit or make contact |
| PMax for store goals | The campaign type that optimises to store visits, store sales and local actions |
| Local store visits and promotions | The campaign objective you pick at creation to reach that type |
| Contacts (Google hosted) | Calls and messages started on Google surfaces, not on your website |
| Directions (Google hosted) | Route requests to your premises, counted as a local action |
| Location assets | Your business addresses, taken from Business Profile or added in the account |
| Affiliate location | Someone else's shop that stocks your product, used as a pickup point |
Three thresholds: find yours
- No premises, or online only. This page does not concern you. The setting will not appear in your campaigns and would have nothing to optimise if it did.
- Premises, and already running PMax for store goals. You are the case it was written for. Open the campaign settings tonight, check whether the panel is there, and immediately check whether the campaign carries Merchant Center products — that is what decides whether the switch does anything.
- Premises, and selling online from a single campaign. You have a decision to make, not a box to tick: split the campaigns, or give up local optimisation. There is no version where both live in one campaign, however inviting the switch looks.
If you are in the third case, splitting is not a one-minute job: it means divided budget, duplicated assets and a stretch where both campaigns are relearning. What we check in an account before touching its structure, and what we do not promise, is on our Google Ads management page.
Questions nobody has asked us
The feature is a day old in the trade press, so nobody has written in yet. These are the questions a shop owner would have after reading the help page, plus the ones that surface every time a campaign changes what it optimises for.
What is Local customer optimization in Google Ads?
It is a setting inside Performance Max campaigns for store goals that prioritises reaching people who are close to or interested in your business area and ready to act immediately — to visit or make contact. You turn it on from a switch in the “Budget and bidding optimization” section of the campaign settings.
How do I know whether my account can show the setting?
You need a Performance Max campaign created with the “Local store visits and promotions” objective, optimising to offline goals only. If no such campaign exists in your list, the panel will not appear anywhere, however long you hunt through settings.
Can I keep my shop and my online sales in one campaign?
Not if you want local optimisation. The documentation rules out both online campaign goals and Merchant Center products. Covering both means two separate campaigns, which in practice means divided budget and a relearning period for each.
What if I switch it on in a campaign with Merchant Center products?
It does not apply. Google writes that the incompatibility holds “even if the toggle is turned on” and advises picking a different campaign or creating a new one. The interface will not stop you or raise an error, so this is a check you have to make yourself.
Which conversion goals does it accept?
Store visits, store sales, contacts (Google hosted) and directions (Google hosted). “Google hosted” means the action happens on Google's surfaces rather than your site, so it will not show up in your web analytics the way a form submission does.
Can I add an online goal later?
Yes, but you switch the setting off first. Otherwise the conversion goals dialog appears with its options disabled and a message sending you back to the local optimisation panel — documented behaviour that reads exactly like a bug.
How much does it lift store traffic?
Google publishes no figure on this page. It lists two benefits in words — customers ready to act, and targeted local reach — and no estimates at all. Any percentage attributed to this feature came from somewhere other than its documentation.
Is it available in every country?
The help page publishes no country list, so we can confirm neither availability nor absence. What we verified on 13 August 2026 is that the page opens under ?hl=ro while serving English text, and that the translated parent page does not link to it. Your account is the real test: if the panel appears in settings, the feature is available there.
Does this replace Local Services Ads?
The help page we read does not mention Local Services Ads anywhere — not the product, not a migration, not a date. We are reporting the absence of a mention on one page, which is not the same as saying the two are unrelated. If Google documents a connection, we will update this page.
What would you check first in a local account this week?
Campaign type, then the campaign's product source, then the conversion goals ticked. In that order you answer three questions: whether the setting can appear at all, whether it would have any effect, and what exactly will be reported back to you once it is on.
Last updated: 13 August 2026. The definition, the incompatibility note, the panel steps and the list of conversion goals are quoted from the Google Ads help page “About Local customer optimization within Performance Max campaign for store goals”, read on 13 August 2026. The twelve-page documentation count and the translation findings are our own measurements from the same day. Bid figures come from Google Keyword Planner exports covering July 2025 to June 2026. We will update this page if Google translates the documentation or publishes a country availability list.
