About affiliate location assets

If you sell your products through retail chains, affiliate location assets can help you reach consumers when they are deciding what and where to buy. Affiliate location assets help people find nearby stores that sell your products.

This article describes affiliate location assets and how to set them up.

Note: Affiliate locations are currently only available for retail chains and auto dealers located in select countries. To find out which countries are eligible, Create an affiliate location asset.

How they work

Affiliate location assets can work with Search, Display, and Youtube Networks.

Here’s an example of how affiliate location assets could help you win new customers on the Search Network:

1. Someone searches on Google for a product.
2. Your ad shows with your affiliate location asset.
3. The person finds the nearest store that sells your product, either as an address or on a map.
4. On mobile, the person can tap to get directions to the store.
5. The person heads to the store and buys your product.

Here’s an example of how affiliate location assets could help you win new customers on the Display Network or on YouTube:

1. Someone who fits your targeting criteria browses websites or apps on the Display Network or watches videos on YouTube.
2. The person is near to, or has demonstrated an interest in, the area where your product is sold.
3. Your display or video ad shows, along with your affiliate location asset, business photos, open hours, and store locations.
4. The person notices the ad, clicks on “Directions,” and goes to the store that sells your product.

When to use them

If you’re a manufacturer who sells products through major retail chains, you can use affiliate location assets to help people find nearby stores that sell your product. If you want to advertise your own business location, use location assets instead.

Easy setup

To set up affiliate location assets in Google Ads, navigate to the Assets page and add a new affiliate location asset at the account level, specify the retail chains where your products are sold, and we’ll take care of the rest.

Once you’ve added affiliate location assets at the account level, the retailers you’ve selected become eligible to show across all campaigns and ad groups in that account. To use a subset of affiliate location assets for specific campaigns or ad groups, use location groups to a new affiliation location asset for the desired campaign or ad group. In contrast to standard location assets, affiliate location extensions don’t require you to link to a Business Profile.

Note: The instructions below are part of the new design for the Google Ads user experience. To use the previous design, click the "Appearance" icon, and select Use previous design. If you're using the previous version of Google Ads, review the Quick reference map or use the Search bar in the top navigation panel of Google Ads to find the page you’re searching for.

How to create affiliate location assets

1. Add chain business locations

Create affiliate location assets in your account by selecting chain businesses that sell your products. To get started, you'll add them at the account level. These locations are provided and updated by Google.

1. In your Google Ads account, click the Campaigns icon .
2. Click the Assets drop down in the section menu.
3. Click Assets.
4. Click the plus button , then click + Affiliate location asset.
5. To select chains at the account level, you’ll first need to select a relationship type. If you want to add auto locations, select Auto dealers from the drop-down, else select General retailers.
6. Click Select retail chains or Select auto dealers and follow the prompts to add the locations to your account.
7. Click Save.

2. Add custom subsets of chain businesses

You can now select customized subsets of businesses from these chains for your campaigns or ad groups. This feature is called location groups and these instructions must be completed first so that the following steps will allow you to link them to campaigns and ad groups.

Follow these steps to customize locations for affiliate location assets:

1. In your Google Ads account, click the Campaigns icon .
2. Click the Assets drop down in the section menu.
3. Click Assets.
4. Click the plus button , followed by + Affiliate location asset.

   • You can either choose to keep all account-level affiliate chains, a location group, "No affiliate chains" to stop the asset from showing (no nearby business locations will be shown) for specific campaigns or ad groups.

Related links

• Create a Performance Max campaign
• Create and Manage Location Groups
• About location assets