Most of a franchise location's Google Ads account is written by someone: the keywords, the bids, the ad copy. One part isn't. The street address, the phone number and the hours are copied in automatically from the location's Google Business Profile.
Google used to call that feature location extensions. Today its help pages call it location assets, "formerly location extensions." Whatever the name, it's how a Search ad shows the nearest address and a tap-to-call button, and it's what lets a Search ad appear on Google Maps. This chapter covers what a location asset copies from the profile, how a franchise system's linking can put the wrong stores in a franchisee's ads, the owner approval Google requires, where the tracking number belongs, and who keeps the profile when a location changes hands. The two listing problems quoted below come from Google reviews of franchise locations in one example market, Orlando. Every franchise system has its own.
A Location Asset Pulls the Address, Phone and Hours From the Business Profile. A Mistake There Runs in Every Ad.
Google's description is plain: "By creating location assets (formerly location extensions) using Business Profile, you allow Google Ads to use data from your Business Profile to format ads." Whatever the profile says, the ad says.
So the profile is, in practice, part of the ad account. A wrong suite number or old hours don't stay on the listing. It shows up next to every ad that carries the location asset, to every searcher who sees one.
Among the 334 Google reviews with text we read for nine franchise locations in the example market, two 1-star reviews came from the listing itself. One customer of a wax center wrote that "it shows their location on Maps IS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD." Another came from far away to the address on a home cleaning location's listing and wrote, in Spanish, that the business was nowhere in the whole shopping center. The listing shows a suite address for a service that comes to the home. Two reviews out of 334 is a small number. Each one cost a customer a wasted trip. Neither problem started in an ad, but both would travel into any ad carrying those locations' profiles, at the moment a customer was ready to drive over.
One practitioner who works with franchise brands put the scale of it bluntly: "You would be shocked at how many times hours are off, addresses are off." The fix starts in the profile, not the ad. Google says profile updates "will flow into your linked Google Ads account(s)" on their own. The one exception it spells out: when a location asset is disapproved over the business name's capitalization or punctuation, fix the name in the profile, then "unlink and re-link your GBP in Google Ads to sync the changes."
A Franchisee Paying for Every Sister Store's Map Ads Has a Linking Mistake, Not a Google Bug.
Business Profile's naming rules are strict for chains: "All business locations within the same country must have the same name for all locations." A franchisee that's a dedicated seller of the brand may use the brand's name. So in a franchise system, every location's profile usually carries the identical name.
That matters when a Google Ads account links to a Business Profile account holding many locations, as happens when the franchisor or its agency manages the profiles. Google offers two filters for deciding which locations sync into the ads account. A business name filter passes "only locations (listings) with the exact business name." In a franchise system, that's all of them. A label filter passes only locations carrying specific labels, up to three, and labels are set per location in the profile.
Without a label filter or a location group, a franchisee's ads can carry other locations' addresses and run on Maps for stores it doesn't own. One agency hit the same problem with a profile account holding several clients' locations: one client ended up paying for map ads for other businesses, and "the client wasn't very happy." Their fix was a label on each location and a location group built from it. Google describes location groups as "reusable collections of physical business locations that can be applied to your account, campaign, or individual ad groups."
The setup we use: link the location source at the account level, label every location in the profile account, and give each franchisee's campaigns a location group containing only that franchisee's store.
Google's own location group page explains why the account level matters. It recommends linking the location source to the account and applying location groups in campaigns or ad groups, because removing locations from a group applied at the account level removes them from the whole account. For a franchise system that adds and sells locations every year, campaign-level groups are the safer habit.
Google Bans Advertising a Location Without Its Owner's Approval. A Franchisor Running Ads for Every Location Needs Each Owner's Yes.
Google's location asset policy has two rules that read as if they were written with franchising in mind. Not allowed: "Advertising a business location without the explicit approval of the business owner at that location." Also not allowed: "The specified location does not match the business running the ad."
For a franchisor running one account that advertises many franchisee-owned locations, the first rule means each location's owner has to approve it. That approval should be in writing. Check whether the franchise agreement or a separate marketing authorization covers Google Ads specifically.
For a franchisee running its own account, the second rule is the one to watch. A franchisee's ad showing a sister store's address isn't just wasted money. It's an ad whose location doesn't match the business running it. The label filter from the last section prevents the second.
A Location Asset Can Show a Different Phone Number From the Profile. That's Where the Location's Tracking Number Belongs.
Chapter 1 gave each location its own tracking number, so every call from an ad can be traced to the location that paid for it. The location asset is where that number has to show up, and Business Profile has a setting for it.
In a profile's advanced settings, the Google Ads phone number "allows you to display a different phone number in the location asset from the number shown on your Business Profile." The same page adds: "If you link Google Ads to a Business Profile and use the Google Ads location asset, a Google Ads phone number is used." The profile keeps its main number for people who find the listing on their own. The ad shows the tracking number.
There's one more interaction to know. Google says that when an ad uses both location and call assets, "ads that feature specific business locations may direct calls to the phone numbers that are associated with those locations, rather than the phone numbers set with your call assets." In a franchise account, that means the call asset can't be relied on alone. If the location asset's number isn't the tracking number, some ad calls may ring the profile's main number instead, and those calls won't show up in the location's own call tracking.
Whoever Holds Primary Ownership Decides Whether a Location's Reviews Go With the Sale.
A Business Profile has layers of access. Google says "A Business Profile can have multiple owners but only one primary owner." Owners have full control. Managers have "mostly the same access to the profile as owners," except that they can't add or remove users or remove the profile. And the primary owner is the one who can transfer the profile. Google's transfer guidance says that moving primary ownership is what keeps "all of your business info, like reviews" with the business.
For a franchise location, that profile carries its reviews, its photos and its history, and Chapter 8 showed how much of a location's ad copy comes from those reviews. One franchise SEO agency's recommended setup: the brand's business group is "the primary owner" and the franchisee is added as an owner, and "The primary owner can remove anybody in the system." Google itself doesn't say who should be the primary owner of a franchise location's profile. That belongs in the franchise agreement, and Chapter 14 covers who runs what.
The profile also decides where the ads can run. Google's list of campaign types that can appear on Maps includes Search campaigns only when they carry location assets. A Search campaign without location assets doesn't reach Maps at all. A franchise location that wants to be found by someone looking at a map of the neighborhood needs a linked, accurate profile behind its ads.
When a location is sold, the profile goes with whoever holds it. A buyer who takes over a location expecting its reviews and its map listing should confirm, before closing, that primary ownership will transfer, or that the franchisor will add them as an owner. The ads account depends on that answer too: its location asset is only as current as the profile it's linked to, and a new owner who loses access can't fix the hours or the phone number the ads are showing.
Next: AI Max Can Send a Franchise Click to a Page the Location Didn't Choose
With each location's profile feeding the right address and number into its ads, Chapter 13 turns to the last setting this guide switches on: AI Max, and why it can send a franchise location's click somewhere the location didn't choose.
All sixteen chapters, from tracking and territories to who runs the ads and franchise development, are on the guide's home page.
Every franchise account in our Google Ads management links its Business Profiles through labels, so each location's ads carry only its own address and its own tracking number. Own a location? Search your business on Google Maps today, check the pin, the hours and the phone number, and ask whoever runs your ads which number the location asset shows.
