Creating a Google Ads account to manage campaigns for multiple locations is a strategic move for any business looking to scale its local or regional presence. The process is straightforward, but your approach should be deliberate to ensure efficient management and clear performance tracking from the start.
The Core Process: Setting Up Your Account
You begin by creating a single, central Google Ads account. This will be your master account from which you manage all locations, budgets, and overarching strategy. Here’s a step-by-step guide:
- Go to ads.google.com and click “Start Now.” You’ll need to sign in with a Google account that you want to associate with this business account. This should ideally be a generic company email (e.g., [email protected]) for stability, not a personal one.
- Choose your campaign goal. For multi-location businesses, goals like “Visits to your business” (for foot traffic) or “Website visits” are common. You can skip this and set up campaigns later if you prefer.
- Set up your billing information. You’ll enter your business country, time zone, and currency. Critical note: The time zone and currency cannot be changed after creation, so choose wisely based on your headquarters or primary market.
- Create your first campaign. Even if you plan to have many location-specific campaigns, you must create at least one to finalize the account setup. You can pause it immediately after if needed.
Strategies for Managing Multiple Locations
Once your account is live, the real work begins: structuring it for multi-location success. At Sagum, our efficiency and lean approach mean we build accounts for clarity and scalability from day one. Here are the two primary methods:
1. Single Account with Multiple Campaigns (Recommended for Most)
This is the most common and manageable structure. You create separate campaigns or ad groups for each location or region.
- Advantages: Centralized billing, easy comparative reporting, and the ability to share negative keyword lists and audiences across locations. It aligns with our philosophy of streamlined communication-one dashboard, one point of truth.
- How to do it: When creating a new campaign, use location targeting to specify the city, radius around an address, or region. Name your campaigns clearly (e.g., “Brand_Name – Boston – Search” or “Service_Line – Southwest Region – Display”).
2. Multiple Accounts Under a Manager Account
For very large franchises or businesses with completely separate branding, budgets, and teams per location, a Google Ads Manager Account (now called a “Google Ads account manager”) is the tool.
- Advantages: It provides strict budget separation and can allow individual location managers limited access without seeing other locations’ data.
- How to do it: First, create your central Manager Account. Then, from within it, you can create new child accounts for each location or link existing ones. This creates a hierarchy where you oversee everything.
Pro Tips from an Agency Perspective
Based on our decade of experience running high-spend, results-driven Google Ads programs, here are the non-negotiable steps after setup:
- Leverage Location Extensions: This is paramount. Connect your Google Business Profile for each location to your account. This allows your ads to show your address, phone number, and a map pin-massively increasing local click-through rates.
- Build a Shared Negative Keyword List: In your central account, create a master list of irrelevant search terms to block across all location campaigns, saving budget and improving relevance.
- Use a “Data-First” Dashboard: As we do with our Grow.com BI dashboards for clients, set up a custom report or use Google Data Studio to visualize performance by location in one view. You can’t manage what you can’t see clearly.
- Establish Clear 30-60-90 Day Goals: For each location or group, define what traction looks like. Is it lead volume, cost per acquisition, or foot traffic? Forecast and measure against these goals independently, just as we establish clear deliverables in our client onboarding.
Ultimately, creating the account is the easy part. The long-term success for multiple locations comes from the strategy, structure, and relentless focus on data you apply from the beginning. By treating each location with specific intent while managing them from a unified, efficient command center, you turn geographic complexity into a scalable competitive advantage.
