Showing up in Google Maps is an important, location specific method for attracting customers to your bricks and mortar store.
Sometimes Google Maps will show your physical store, but not all the time. In some cases where you want to promote a special offer, or drive more users during weekends or for a marketing campaign, running Google Maps ads is an easy and cost-effective method.

Google Maps ads are just one form of PPC that a typical PPC agency would run on your behalf, in addition to managing your standard Google Ads.
However, if you want to run things yourself, follow the steps below.
1. Create and verify your Google Business Profile
Visit the Google Business Profile site, and sign in with or create your Google account.
Then claim and verify your business.
Normally Google will send you a postcard with some letters and numbers. Recently, they’ve also started using video verification.
Google has a bunch of address data to understand what is residential and what is commercial, based on where your physical location is, you may be asked to complete the verification differently.
2. Set up your Google Ads Account
Usually Google will offer you a $600 credit (after you spend $600) when signing up to Google Ads as part of your Google Business Profile setup.
In order to take advantage of the credit, your best bet is to wait a few days after you create/verify your Google Business Profile. They will then email you with steps and a link to sign up.
I won’t cover the entire sign up process here, but they’ll ask you a bunch of questions about your business, get your credit card details, and they’ll have a wizard to walk you through.
Once your account is ready to use, go to Campaigns > Assets > Location to connect your Google Business Profile to your Google Ads account.

Once connected, you can create your own Local Search Ad Campaign.
3. Create the Local Search Ad Campaign
Hit the big “+” Create button and create Campaign, and make sure you select the “Local shop visits and promotions” objective as this pushes the ad to Google Maps instead of just Google Search.

Define your location such as “Sydney”. You can get far more specific with the targeting so that you’re only showing in select suburbs. This would be highly recommended if you’re budget conscious and just getting a feel for Google Ads.
Make sure you choose Location Extensions.
Select your Shop location –

Then follow the wizard to walk you through the rest of the Ad asset creation process. Focusing specifically on Maps below.

When it comes to your budget, I always recommend starting small with a budget of around $10 to $50 per day. Google Ads can spend very quickly, and often times, if you don’t cap it, it will run away from you and easily spend thousands of dollars if you’re not careful.
You can easily increase the budget later if things are going well for you.
And that’s it! Set the campaign to enabled and it will be working almost immediately.
You should check on it in a few hours to see if it’s generating Impressions or Clicks. If your search keywords are too specific or your keyword bid is too low (lower than your competition), you might not show straight away.
It’s best to check your Impressions metric as this is an indication of your ad being shown.
If there are Impressions, or better yet Clicks, then congratulations! Your Google Maps local search ad has now been created!
Again, Google local search ads are only one part of the wider PPC mix, and PPC is only one part of the wider marketing mix.
Make sure you diversify your Ads to account for any and all changes in this rapidly changing AI marketing world.