Should I run Google Ads if I already rank in the map pack?
Short answer
It depends on where you rank and whether ads would bring jobs you aren't already getting. A map pack position holds near your address and fades with distance, so ads are useful in the cities and for the services where you don't appear. Where you already rank first, test whether they add calls.
Run Google Ads where they would bring jobs you aren’t already getting, which means the cities and services where you don’t appear in the map pack, and where you already rank first, test whether they add calls. The map pack is the three businesses Google lists beside a map. If you held a place in it across your whole service area, for every service you sell, ads might add little. Very few companies are in that position, and a search made from your own office can’t tell you whether you are.
First, find out where you rank
A map pack position is true for one spot, not for a county. Google weighs the distance between the searcher and the business, so a hypothetical company based in Kearny Mesa can be first in Clairemont and missing in Chula Vista for the same search. A rank grid, the tool behind local rank tracking, runs the search from many points across the service area and shows where you appear and where you fade. That map is the starting point for any decision about ads.
Where ads add something
The gains are in the places and for the services where you don’t show up unpaid. The usual cases:
- Cities you serve but don’t rank in, because competitors are closer to those searchers.
- Services you sell but don’t rank for. A company can be in the map pack for “AC repair” and nowhere for “heat pump installation”.
- Searches where ads fill the top of the page. Local Services Ads (LSA) and search ads usually appear above the map pack, so on a phone the map can be a scroll away.
- Weeks when the schedule has gaps and you want more calls now.
Where ads may buy calls you already had
Where you’re already first, an ad can end up paying for a customer who would have called anyway. The clearest example is a search for your own company name. Someone looking for you by name will usually find you without an ad. The same risk applies in the neighborhoods around your office. Some of those paid calls are extra and some aren’t. The ad account can’t tell you which, because it counts every call the ad touched.
How to tell the difference
Test it in one area and watch total calls, not ad calls. I’d pick an area where you rank well, change the ads there and nowhere else, and compare all calls from that area before and after, paid and unpaid together. If total calls barely move when the ads are reduced, the ads there were mostly replacing calls you’d have received. If total calls drop, the ads were earning their cost. This needs call tracking that separates the sources, and enough time for the numbers to mean something. Weather and season complicate it, so a heat wave week shouldn’t be compared with a mild one.
What ads won’t do for the map pack
Running ads doesn’t improve your map pack position. Google says its paid and unpaid results are kept separate, and that covers organic rankings as well as the map pack. The useful connection runs the other way. As your map pack ranking spreads across more of the county, the ad budget can be moved to the areas still uncovered, or brought down.
I manage both from the same rank grid, so the ad spend goes to the places the unpaid results don’t reach.