As anticipated, Google is launching a feature Thursday night for businesses that want to target customers based on geography.

Marketers will be able to place photos and logos inside balloons that pop up on Google maps exactly where the merchants are located.

A handful of advertisers, including Barnes & Noble and Ralph Lauren, have purchased keywords such as "New York books" and "Ralph Lauren New York" and tested the new Local Business Ads system over the past few weeks, said Dominic Preuss, product manager for Google's local advertising.

Users will notice that with certain searches on Google Local, icons representing types of businesses will appear on the map corresponding with a particular merchant. A given icon might be a coffee cup, a shopping bag, a grocery cart, a car or, in the case of Ralph Lauren, a flower. When someone clicks the icon, a balloon pops up containing more information about the merchant, including a logo or photo and maybe a link to the merchant's Web site.

With Local Business Ads, merchants bid on keywords and pay per click as they do for ads now on Google AdWords, said Preuss. The ads show up on the maps as well as on Google's main search results page as regular text ads, he said.


Full article: CNET News.com