An affiliate location asset is a Google Ads feature that adds the address of a nearby retail store selling your products to your ad, for brands that sell through other retailers’ shops rather than their own. A drinks brand stocked in supermarkets, or a paint manufacturer sold through DIY chains, can show the searcher where to buy the product locally.
How affiliate location assets work
You do not upload addresses yourself. In the asset settings you choose retail chains from a list Google maintains for each country, and Google holds the store locations for those chains. When someone searches near one of the stores, your ad can show the nearest branch, its distance and a link to directions. It is the brand-owner’s version of a location asset, which instead pulls your own premises from a linked Google Business Profile.
You can choose a whole chain, which includes all its UK branches that Google knows about, or select retailers by category. The asset can be added at account or campaign level. It can appear on search ads and on other inventory such as display and video, depending on the campaign type and Google’s current rules. Clicks on the directions link are reported separately, which gives a rough measure of how many people looked up a store.
If a chain you sell through is not on Google’s list, you cannot add it by hand. Google’s list is limited to retailers it has location data for, so smaller independent stockists will not appear.
Why it matters
Brands that sell through retailers face a gap: their ads create interest, but the customer then has to work out where to buy. If your product is on the shelves of a chain with branches across the UK, an ad that says “available at a store 0.4 miles away” closes that gap and sends the buyer to a shop rather than to a competitor’s website.
It also gives a useful signal for measuring the offline effect of online ads. Most manufacturers cannot see retail sales by ad click, but directions clicks, and in larger accounts store visit conversions where Google makes them available, show whether the ads lead to trips to stockists. For brands that also sell online, it complements local inventory ads, which retailers use to show stock in their own stores.
Common mistakes
- Selecting a whole chain when only some of its branches stock your product. Searchers then travel to a store that does not have it, which damages trust in both you and the retailer.
- Using the asset on campaigns aimed at online sales, where a store address pulls attention away from the website.
- Forgetting to update the asset when a retailer delists your range.
- Running it without any location targeting, so it shows to people nowhere near a stockist.
How to act on it
Start by listing which chains stock which products, and how consistent the range is across branches. Add only the chains where most branches carry the product. Pair the asset with location targeting that covers the areas where those stores are, and write ad copy that mentions buying in store so the asset feels like part of the message rather than an afterthought.
Review directions clicks by campaign each month and compare them with any sell-through data the retailer shares with you. If you run several campaigns, keep the asset on those built around buying locally and leave it off the ones built around your own online shop. Setting up assets like this is part of the work I do in Google search ads management.