How to advertise on Apple Maps: the complete guide

Apple opened Maps to advertising on August 14, 2026, in the United States and Canada. If you run a business that people can walk into, you can now pay to appear at the top of the Maps search results they see while deciding where to go.

This guide walks the whole path, in order, in plain English. Nothing here assumes you have run ads before.

Before you start: are you eligible?

Three things have to be true.

• You have a physical location customers can visit, in the US or Canada.
• You have a business address in one of those countries.
• You have a verified business profile in Apple Business.

Apple also blocks some categories outright. Home services (plumbing, electrical, locksmith, HVAC, pest control, roofing, general contracting), bail bonds, and cryptocurrency ATMs cannot advertise. Medical services are reviewed case by case, and alcohol, gambling, and dating businesses carry extra restrictions.

If you are not sure which side of the line you fall on, read the eligibility rules in full before you spend time on setup.

Step 1: Create or update your Apple Business account

Apple Business is the free hub that controls how your brand appears across Apple Maps, Wallet, Siri, and the rest of Apple's apps. If you already had an Apple Business Connect account, you have one of these: Business Connect moved into Apple Business in April 2026, and existing accounts came across automatically.

You will enter your company details, accept the terms, and go through business verification. The first person to set up the organisation is the one who has to accept the Terms of Service, so use an account you will still control in a year.

Step 2: Claim and verify your locations

Claim every location you might want to advertise, not just the first one. Campaigns can be run by market or at the national level later, but only claimed, verified locations are eligible.

This is the step that decides your timeline. Verifying by phone number is instant. Every other verification method can take up to 5 business days. If you are working toward a deadline, start here and do everything else while you wait.

Step 3: Curate your place card

Your place card is what a customer actually sees, and its contents feed straight into your ads. Apple's own guidance is to include at least three photos, because those photos may be used inside your ad.

Set up, at minimum:

• your logo and a cover photo,
• at least three photos of the place, the product, or both,
• accurate hours, category, and contact details,
• the custom actions you want people to be able to take.

A thin place card produces a thin ad. This is the cheapest hour you will spend on the whole project.

Step 4: Link an Apple Ads account

Go to the Apple Ads website, choose Apple Maps in the top navigation, and select Get started. Sign in with a user who holds the Global Admin or Ads Admin role in your Apple Business organisation, so your business details and locations carry across.

You will then:

1. choose which Apple Business brands to link,
2. accept the Apple Advertising Services Terms of Service,
3. complete the Business Details page, including tax information,
4. set up a payment method.

Pay attention to that last one. Apple's launch credit requires payment by credit card, so if you intend to claim it, do not set the account up on invoicing. The credit rules are worth reading before you choose.

Step 5: Build the campaign

Campaign setup follows a fixed order:

1. Pick the brand and the placement. Ads run in two places: at the top of search results, and in Suggested Places, the list Maps shows before someone types anything.
2. Choose a bid strategy. You pay per tap by default. Some advanced bid strategies bill per thousand impressions instead.
3. Name the campaign and create an ad group. Ad groups are how you separate different keywords, creative, or locations.
4. Select your locations. You can promote all of them, pick specific ones, or build location groups from rules, which is how chains keep a city or a region together.
5. Set keywords, or let Apple match them. For search results campaigns you can use Search Match, which matches your ad to relevant queries automatically, or you can choose keyword phrases and categories yourself.
6. Apply audience settings and scheduling if you want to control where and when your ads run.
7. Create the ad. Name it and choose your creative. Depending on the query, your ad renders with one image, three images, or as text only.
8. Select Create Campaign. From there you manage everything in the campaign dashboard.

Step 6: Set a budget and go live

You set a monthly budget and there is no minimum spend. You can start, pause, and stop whenever you want, which makes the honest first move a small one.

Because the platform is new, nobody has reliable cost benchmarks yet, including us. We explain what actually drives the price rather than inventing a number.

What you can measure

Once ads are running you get impressions, taps on your ad, and taps on each individual action: directions, calls, website, photos, share, and app downloads. All of it can be broken out by location and by campaign.

That last part matters more than it sounds. Directions and calls are the closest thing digital advertising has to a footfall metric, because someone asking for directions to your door has told you exactly what they intend to do next.

If you would rather not do this yourself

Apple supports authorised agencies, and access is delegated inside Apple Business. The owner signs in as an Organization Administrator or Marketing Administrator, goes to Settings, then Integrations, then Partner Access, selects Share Access, enters the partner's Organization ID, picks Ads on Maps, chooses which brands the partner may manage, and sends the invitation.

Nothing is handed over permanently. You can withdraw partner access from the same screen.

A realistic timeline

The work is small. The waiting is not. Plan around verification and everything else fits into an afternoon.

Sources

Everything above comes from Apple's own published advertiser and agency guidance for ads on Apple Maps, and from Apple's stated product rules as of August 2026. Apple can change any of it, so confirm current terms with Apple before you commit budget.