Franchise PPC: corporate vs local control

The franchise paid search argument is always the same: corporate wants consistency and control, franchisees want to see their own leads and feel they're getting their share. Both are right, and the fix is structural rather than political. One campaign template proven in pilot markets, cloned per location with local geo, number, page and budget, with reporting at the location level that both sides trust. We've run this across hundreds of locations for a single brand.

The three funding models

Corporate-funded. Corporate pays, runs the program, and allocates by market. Simplest, best data, fastest rollout. The tension: franchisees who don't see their own numbers assume they're being shortchanged. Location-level dashboards solve most of it.

Co-op. Corporate and franchisees split the cost by a formula. Works when the formula is written down and the reporting matches it exactly. Fails when the split is negotiated location by location.

Franchisee-paid. Each location opts in and pays its own way. Slowest to roll out and hardest to keep consistent, but the buy-in is real. Onboard in waves, using the first wave's numbers to sell the second.

The structure

• One manager (MCC) account owned by the franchisor.
• One campaign template: themes, ad groups, copy, negatives, bid strategies, proven in five to ten pilot markets.
• Cloned per location, with local geo targeting, local phone via call tracking, a local landing page generated from one design, and a local budget.
• Corporate sees the system; each franchisee sees their own account view and dashboard.
• Lead attribution by location through call tracking and form routing, so "was that lead mine" never comes up.
• Local Services Ads and Google Business Profiles per location, run under the same process.

Rollout

Pilot for 90 days. Rollout in waves of 20 to 50 locations, two to three weeks per wave. A 200-location system is fully live in four to six months. Locations with their own agency come in a later wave, once the template has numbers the local agency can't match.

What breaks franchise programs

A template built for headquarters' market and pushed unchanged to everywhere. Reporting franchisees can't see. Budgets set once and never rebalanced across markets. Corporate landing pages with no local content. Nobody owning the local reviews.