Google has launched a new mobile advertising product that allows marketers to target adverts based on users' immediate location.
If the user is in the area of the business, the ad will appear as a display banner advert in their internet browser.
If clicked on, the advert can then expand to show the business location on a map a click-to-call phone number, and an option to request turn-by-turn directions.
Advertisers are only charged when a user chooses to call the business or visit its website, but not when users expand the ad to view the map information or access directions.
Announcing the format in a blog post, Dai Pham, a member of Google's mobile ads marketing team, said the company believed providing mobile users with more options to connect with advertisers would help increase their interaction with the new format.
“Many mobile consumers use maps to locate a business and get directions on their phones,” he wrote.
The system targets ads by getting a location from the user’s IP address. If users opt-in to share more precise geographic information, the ads can be more precisely based on the user’s location.
Currently the formats will only appear on high-end mobile devices with full internet browsers, such as Apple's iPhone and devices running Google's own Android mobile operating system.
