Hooray, finally some integration between pay per click ads and the local search interface on Google.

At the packed NMK event on local search last year 'New Directions In Search (NMK) 08/09/2005 '  I did a walk through of what the different search engines were doing with regards to the estimated $2Billion (Overture figures) local search market and particularly, how Google responded to local search queries - when they showed the local results in the onebox, how accurate they were, proximity ranking, what were the most effective methods of reaching the highest volume of local search queries etc. I shocked the agency audience by demonstrating the biggest problem of all for and advertiser was that the Pay Per Click ads on the actual local search results pages were less targeted than the ones in the generic SERP.. .completely counter intuitive for a user.

So it is great to read on Barrys site about a recent demo spotted in New York of Google integrating Pay Per Click ads in a more intuitive way into the local search pages and maps.