As the holiday shopping season approaches, Google Ads has introduced two new features designed to help businesses with physical locations attract nearby customers and better understand how online advertising contributes to offline sales.
Announced on September 8, 2026, by Google Ads Liaison Ginny Marvin, Local Customer Optimization and Store Sales in Data Manager address two important parts of the customer journey. The first focuses on reaching people who are close to a business and ready to take action, while the second makes it easier for advertisers to connect offline purchase data with their Google Ads campaigns.
For retailers, restaurants, and other businesses operating from multiple locations, these updates could make it easier to connect digital advertising with real-world customer visits and purchases.
What Are the Two New Google Ads Features?
1. Local Customer Optimization: Reaching Customers Near Your Business
Local Customer Optimization is a new campaign-level setting available within Performance Max campaigns that use store goals.
When enabled, the feature allows Google Ads to prioritize potential customers who are physically close to a business location and demonstrate signals indicating that they may be ready to take an offline action.
Instead of focusing only on people who have shown general interest in a product or service, advertisers can use this setting to place greater emphasis on customers who are nearby and potentially ready to visit a store.
The feature uses local-intent and navigation-related signals across Google properties, including Google Maps, Waze, and local Search. This can help campaigns respond to situations where a customer is already nearby, searching for a business, running errands, or travelling within the vicinity of a store.
Importantly, Local Customer Optimization is not a separate campaign type. Businesses already using Performance Max campaigns with store goals can access the setting within their existing campaigns, subject to eligibility and availability.
2. Store Sales in Data Manager: Connecting Advertising With Offline Purchases
While Local Customer Optimization focuses on attracting nearby customers, Store Sales in Data Manager addresses what happens after the customer visits the business. Offline sales data has traditionally required more complex technical integrations before it could be used effectively within Google Ads. The new Data Manager functionality aims to simplify this process.
Advertisers can connect their CRM system or Google Sheets through Data Manager to share store sales information with Google Ads. This can help businesses understand which campaigns are contributing to actual in-store purchases.
The benefit goes beyond reporting. Store Sales data can also support value-based bidding, allowing Smart Bidding to optimize campaigns based on purchase value rather than relying solely on signals such as clicks or store visits.
Google has stated that Store Sales in Data Manager will begin rolling out in the coming weeks, meaning availability may differ between accounts during the initial rollout.
How These Two Features Work Together
The two updates address different stages of the customer journey.
Local Customer Optimization focuses on the beginning of the journey by helping businesses reach potential customers who are nearby and showing local purchase intent. Store Sales in Data Manager focuses on the other end by helping advertisers connect their advertising activity with purchases made in physical locations.
Together, they create a more complete feedback loop:
Reach nearby customers → Drive store visits → Track purchases → Use sales data to improve campaigns
This approach can help businesses move beyond measuring digital interactions alone and gain a clearer understanding of how advertising contributes to real-world revenue.
What Should Local Businesses Do Now?
Businesses interested in these updates can take several practical steps to prepare.
Review Your Eligibility
First, check whether your Google Ads account and campaigns are eligible for the new features. The updates are particularly relevant to businesses with multiple physical locations, including retailers, restaurants, and local service businesses.
Keep Your Business Locations Accurate
Accurate location information is increasingly important for local advertising.
Make sure your business names, addresses, opening hours, locations, and other relevant information are accurate across your Google Business Profiles and other local platforms. Reliable location information can help Google better understand where your physical stores are located.
Organize Your Customer and Sales Data
Store Sales measurement depends on having reliable offline purchase information.
Businesses should review their CRM and sales records and ensure that customer and transaction data is accurate, consistent, and properly structured before connecting it through Data Manager.
The new feature reduces the technical complexity of sharing data, but businesses still need good-quality first-party data for meaningful measurement.
Review Your Performance Max Campaigns
If your business already uses Performance Max campaigns with store goals, review the available campaign settings and determine whether Local Customer Optimization is available for your account.
Businesses should also monitor campaign performance after making changes rather than assuming that a new setting will automatically improve results.
Prepare Before the Holiday Shopping Season
The timing of these updates is particularly relevant for businesses preparing for increased seasonal demand.
Holiday shoppers often search for nearby stores, products, services, and offers while they are already travelling or completing other shopping activities. Having accurate location information, properly configured campaigns, and reliable sales data can help businesses make better use of this increased demand.
Google Continues to Strengthen Local Advertising
These updates are part of a wider development in Google's local advertising ecosystem. Earlier in 2026, Google expanded Performance Max for store goals with additional local advertising opportunities, including Waze ad inventory and Promoted Places pins in Navigation.
The broader direction is clear: Google is bringing advertising, navigation, local search, and offline measurement closer together. For businesses with physical locations, this means digital advertising is increasingly connected to what happens offline.
What This Means for Local Businesses
Local Customer Optimization and Store Sales in Data Manager address two common challenges faced by businesses with physical locations: finding nearby customers who are ready to act and measuring whether advertising ultimately leads to sales. The new features do not eliminate the need for a strong local advertising strategy. Businesses still need accurate location listings, well-structured campaigns, clean customer data, and consistent measurement.
However, by reducing some of the technical barriers involved in local targeting and offline sales tracking, these updates can make it easier for businesses to connect their Google Ads campaigns with actual store performance.
As the holiday season approaches, businesses with physical locations should review their Google Ads setup, location data, and offline sales tracking to determine whether these new capabilities can be incorporated into their advertising strategy.