Many franchise ads sound like the brand, because the brand's side runs them. The national name, the national promise, the slogan from the TV spot. That makes sense on a billboard. In a search ad for one location, it leaves out the thing customers actually talk about when they're happy: the people at that location.
This chapter covers where a franchise location's ad copy should come from, what the brand template can and can't supply, the offers a location should never let an ad promise, and how to set the ad up so Google can test the location's own words. The customer quotes come from Google reviews of nine franchise locations in one example market, Orlando. Your location's reviews will say different things. They'll say them about the same subject.
In 334 Reviews of Nine Franchise Locations, 140 Named a Staff Member. Three Praised the Brand Behind It.
We read the newest Google reviews for nine franchise locations in the example market, three home-services, three fitness and wellness, three kids' education, and coded all 334 that had text by hand.
The biggest single pattern was a name. 140 of the 334 reviews named someone who works there: a technician, a coach, a wax specialist, a teacher, an office scheduler, an owner. At the home-services locations it was 92 of 126 reviews. At one electrician location, 47 of its 56 newest reviews with text named the technician or another staff member. "Technician deserves 10 stars," one customer wrote.
That electrician location also showed how the words get there. Its 60 newest reviews arrived in 21 days. We read a flow like that as someone asking for a review at the end of each job, a location habit, not something the brand's ads create. It's also a supply line. A location that collects a steady stream of reviews gets a steady stream of fresh customer language to write ads from.
The same habit shows in how locations answer. Owner responses ran from 6% of reviews at one tutoring center to 100% at one electrician and one fitness studio. A location that answers its reviews reads them, and a location that reads them knows which words its customers use.
Praise for the brand itself was rare. Three reviews, all for home-services locations, credited the size of the company or its family of sister brands. Meanwhile 31 reviews, all at fitness and kids' education locations, set the location apart from the brand. "Nothing wrong with F45 in general, just avoid this location at all cost," read one. "This Kumon center has been the best Kumon center I have ever been to!" read another.
The brand gets the customer to recognize the logo. Chapter 2 put that job on the ad fund. What the customer praises afterward is the location, and that's what a location's ad has to sell.
Electricians Get Praised for Speed and Tutoring Centers for a Child's Progress. Their Headlines Shouldn't Match.
We write ad copy starting from two sources: the words on the landing page, and the words customers already use. For a franchise location, the second source is sitting in its Google Business Profile.
The reviews didn't praise the same things across franchise types. Speed was the home-services compliment: 51 reviews praised a fast response, 44 of them at home-services locations. "Came on the same day I called," one homeowner wrote. Kids' education reviews praised progress instead: 46 of the 95 kids' education reviews praised a child's results, like "allowed my daughter to skip a grade!" Fitness and wellness customers wrote about the place and the people in it, "The studio itself was spotless" and "Best workout community ever."
Those recurring themes become headlines, and the descriptions are the place for the team and the location's own offer. Google gives each responsive search ad room for 15 headlines, none longer than 30 characters, plus 4 descriptions that can run to 90. An electrician location's set can carry "Electrician Here the Same Day" next to the brand headline. A tutoring center's can carry "Build Reading Confidence" next to its program names. A studio's can carry "A Spotless Studio, Every Class."
Use the theme, not the sentence. Build the headline around a word customers use, like "same day," "spotless" or "confidence," rather than pasting a whole review into the ad. And keep outcome headlines to what the location can back up: Google's rules don't allow ads that promise an improbable result as the likely outcome.
A Brand Template Can Write the Ad. Only the Local Team Has the Proof.
In many systems, the location owner doesn't run the ads at all. We read the newest ads on 52 franchise brand domains in Google's Ads Transparency Center, the public library of ads that have run. On 24 of the 52, at least 70% of the newest ads we sampled were paid for by the franchisor, its parent company or a brand marketing entity, such as a marketing-fund company.
That's not wrong. It does mean an owner may not know what's running under their location's name. The Transparency Center shows it. Search your brand's name or its website domain, open each advertiser that comes up, and look for ads naming your location. If the ads naming your location only carry the brand's national lines, that's the conversation to have with whoever runs them.
The location ads we could read in the example market showed the pattern. Two came from the franchisor's own account and one from the franchisee's company, and each put the location in the headline: "The Joint Ocoee - No Appointments Needed," "Kumon of Oviedo - Build Strong Reading Skills," "F45 Training Dr. Phillips - Fill Out the Form to Join." The rest was the brand's pitch and an offer, such as five days for $25, a $29 new-patient special or a free assessment. None of the ad text we could read mentioned the people customers name in that location's reviews.
What the template can supply is the brand: the name, the guarantee, the national program. What only the location can supply is everything that makes it a real place: its own name and neighborhood, the team customers keep naming, its hours, its own offer, and the themes from its own reviews. Chapter 4's location page should carry the very same details, so a searcher who clicks the ad lands on proof of what it promised.
Google Bans Ads for Offers a Location Can't Deliver. A Brand-Wide Promotion Needs Each Location's Yes First.
Google's Misrepresentation policy rules out ads that "Offer products or services that you don't have or can't deliver." A second line covers the click itself: "Promising products, services, or promotional offers in the ad that are unavailable or aren't easily found from the destination is not allowed."
A franchise breaks that rule in a way a single business rarely does. The brand runs a national promotion, and one location can't honor it: the opening isn't there, the pass doesn't work at that studio, the price is set locally. In our sample, 5 of the 334 reviews described a pass, price or opening that differed from what the brand's channels said, 4 of them at one childcare center. "Why would they be advertising openings if they know very well they don't have any space," wrote one parent about a childcare location.
Brand passes and memberships work the same way. At one fitness studio, a visiting member was booked as a paid drop-in, and a coach then went on to "explain to me how the Passport limits work for their location." At one childcare location, a parent wrote that "prices and discounts seem to be set at her discretion." A brand ad can't know any of that. Only the location can.
None of the 334 reviews mentioned a national coupon or sale by name. The few complaints in this area came from brand passes, brand emails and advertised openings the location didn't have.
The rule we follow: a brand-wide offer goes into a location's ad only after that location confirms it can honor it, for as long as the ad runs. Where a location can't, its ads carry its own offer instead, or none.
If Every Headline Is Pinned, You'll Never Learn Whether Local Words Beat the Brand's Slogan.
A responsive search ad mixes its headlines and descriptions into many combinations, and over time Google learns which ones work. Pinning fixes a headline to one position, so only what's pinned there can show in that spot.
Brand guidelines can push toward one approved headline pinned to each position, so every ad reads exactly as written. The cost is the test. With one headline pinned to each position, every ad is the same ad, and the location's own lines never get a chance against the brand's.
We launch new location ads unpinned. If the brand requires its name or a legal line in every ad, pin that one to Headline 1 or 2 and leave the rest free. Google's own advice, when you do pin, is to pin 2 or 3 different headlines to the same position so it still has something to test. After the ad has run for a while, Google's reports on individual assets and on combinations show how often each line and each combination served. That's where an owner starts to see whether "Electrician Here the Same Day" is earning a place next to the slogan.
Our Google Ads for Local Businesses guide covers ad copy for a business with one location and no brand template to work within.
Next: Franchise Territories Don't Exist in Google Ads Until You Draw Them
With the ads saying what the location's customers say, Chapter 9 turns to where they show: how each location's territory becomes a set of ZIP codes in Google Ads, and what happens at the borders.
All sixteen chapters, from tracking and territories to who runs the ads and franchise development, are on the guide's home page.
Every franchise location's ads in our Google Ads management start from that location's own reviews, then the brand's approved lines. Own a location? Read your last 30 Google reviews tonight, write down the three words customers repeat most, and check whether any of them appear in your ads.
