Google Ads adds two tools for in-store sales
On September 8, 2026 Google Ads Liaison Ginny Marvin announced two features aimed at multi-location retailers, restaurants and local service businesses. The first is Local customer optimization, a campaign level setting inside Performance Max campaigns that use store goals. The second is Store sales in Data Manager, which connects sales data from a CRM or Google Sheets.
Two separate moves ahead of the holiday season
The announcement came through a post on X by Google Ads Liaison Ginny Marvin and reached industry publications on September 8, 2026. Marvin named the audience directly: "Ahead of the holiday rush, we're introducing two features for multi-location retailers". The two features do different jobs. Local customer optimization sits at the front of the funnel and shapes where the budget goes. Store sales in Data Manager sits at the back, making it easier to connect a sale that happened in the shop with the advertising that preceded it. Google positioned both updates as reducing the work required to drive and measure offline sales. In Marvin's framing, the aim is to unite real-time navigation signals at the front with offline revenue measurement at the back.
The setting works in a narrow place, and the constraint is explicit
According to Google Ads Help, Local customer optimization is a campaign level setting available only in Performance Max campaigns that use store goals. The documentation says the setting prioritizes reaching potential customers who are close to or interested in the business area and ready to take immediate action such as visiting or contacting. Budget is directed towards locally tailored ads on Google Maps, Waze and local formats on Google Search. Search Engine Journal reports the setting draws on signals from people navigating, planning trips or searching for locations. Here is the critical constraint: the setting works only with offline conversion goals, namely store visits, store sales, contacts and directions. It is not compatible with online campaign goals. Beyond that, it cannot be used in a Performance Max campaign advertising products from a linked Merchant Center account; the advertiser must either deselect those products or run a separate store-goals campaign. The setting can be enabled while creating a new store-goal campaign, or from the budget and bidding settings of an existing eligible one. One note: this setting is not brand new. Search Engine Land covered the same setting on August 12, 2026, and that article said the migration of serving ads to nearby people into Performance Max was announced in July 2026. The rollout wording also differs between sources: Search Engine Land says it is rolling out now, while Search Engine Journal says it is rolling out globally soon.
The measurement change is quieter but more durable
The second feature, Store sales in Data Manager, lets advertisers connect existing sales data from sources such as a CRM or Google Sheets directly inside Google Data Manager. It replaces what Google describes as more technically demanding methods of sharing offline revenue data. That data is used to connect in-store purchases with prior ad interactions, both for reporting and for Smart Bidding optimization. The technical conditions are set out too: customer information such as emails, phone numbers and addresses must be hashed before use, and Google Ads can hash unhashed data using SHA-256. Search Engine Journal reports the recommended upload frequency is daily or weekly, and that transactions from the previous 30 days are required for dynamic conversion value reporting. The item that tempers expectations is access: the feature is limited to eligible or allowlisted advertisers, with varying levels of access. The timing is not firm either; Search Engine Land and Search Engine Roundtable say the coming weeks, while Search Engine Journal points to the end of September 2026. One widely shared figure also deserves care: the comparison of 3.39 dollars against 2.27 dollars in incremental ROAS on Google's Business Accelerate page comes from separate Measured testing dated November 2025, and is not a number from the September 8 announcement.
In Türkiye this is a campaign architecture decision, plus expectation management on measurement
None of the sources mention Türkiye, so there is no information on a country list or a local availability date. Even so, three consequences apply directly. First, campaign architecture: for businesses running both a physical shop and an online store, doing both jobs in a single Performance Max campaign is no longer possible. Because local customer optimization does not run in a campaign with a linked product feed, store traffic has to sit in its own campaign, which means deliberately splitting the budget. That changes the setup directly for multi-location retail, restaurant chains and local service businesses such as salons. Second, a prerequisite: since the setting only works with offline goals, the Google Business Profile and location data have to be properly set up, and without that groundwork the setting cannot be enabled at all. Third, expectation management on measurement: Store sales access depends on an allowlist and no date was given for Türkiye, so assuming short term availability would be wrong. There is a legal side as well: even when CRM data is hashed, this remains a first-party customer data transfer, and under Turkish data protection law it requires explicit consent and a disclosure notice. Being technically possible does not make it legally free.
The UNALSOFT view
What interests us in this announcement is less a new switch than a setup decision. In our ad management work we have seen the same pattern for years: in accounts that squeeze store traffic and online sales into one campaign, one of the two always falls behind. Google now makes that separation mandatory through the setting's own constraint, so what used to be a preference is now a rule. Our advice to businesses in Türkiye is to build the split in a calm week before the season starts; campaign splits made in a hurry during November usually break measurement along with everything else. As for the Data Manager connection, there is no need to rush, establishing data discipline first is enough.
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