3 Locations Were Cannibalizing Each Other on Google

Bark Avenue has three grooming salons in the Reno/Sparks area — South Reno, Sparks, and Northwest Reno. They'd been running Google Ads and had Google Business Profiles for all three, but something was off: none of them were ranking well, and the ads felt like they were competing with themselves.

They were right.

What We Found

All three Google Business Profiles had the same description — copy-pasted word for word. Same photos across all three. Same list of services. Google couldn't tell them apart, so instead of ranking any of them strongly, it was rotating them inconsistently and ranking none of them in the top 3.

The Google Ads situation was worse. All three locations were running under a single campaign with one set of keywords. When someone searched "dog groomer Sparks NV," all three locations were bidding against each other. Google was showing whichever one it felt like, often the one farthest from the searcher. They were paying three times for one search.

Their blended cost per lead was $52, but the real cost was higher because many of those leads were going to the wrong location. Someone near the Sparks salon would click an ad, land on a generic page, not see the Sparks address, and call a competitor instead.

What We Did

GBP — made each location unique. Each profile got its own description mentioning its specific neighborhood, landmarks, and cross streets. Each got its own photo set — interior shots, the team, and recent grooming work from that location. Each got its own review response strategy (the manager at each location responds to reviews, not a central office).

Ads — separated by location. We split the single campaign into three campaigns, each with its own radius targeting (5-mile radius around each salon). Each campaign has location-specific ad copy and lands on a dedicated page for that location. The Sparks campaign mentions Sparks. The South Reno campaign mentions South Reno. No more confusion.

Landing pages — one per location. Each location got its own page with address, map, photos of that specific salon, that location's hours, and a direct booking link for that location. When someone clicks an ad for the Sparks salon, they land on a page that is clearly about the Sparks salon.

We also set up negative keyword cross-exclusions. The South Reno campaign has "Sparks" and "Northwest" as negatives. The Sparks campaign has "South Reno" and "Northwest" as negatives. This prevents the campaigns from competing with each other on location-specific searches.

What Changed

Within three months, two of the three locations were consistently in the Maps 3-pack for their respective areas. The average Maps ranking across all three went from #8 to #3. Monthly combined clicks tripled from 203 to 612.

On the ads side, cost per lead dropped from $52 to $28 because each click was now going to the right location with the right landing page. No more paying for a click in Sparks that sends someone to a generic page where they can't find the Sparks address.

The owner told us she'd assumed multi-location marketing was just more expensive. It's not — it's just more specific. Each location needs its own identity, its own campaigns, and its own landing pages. Copy-paste doesn't work.