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Retailers that sell online and in-store need to balance where to send users in their paid search efforts. Columnist Andy Taylor explores when advertisers might want to rely on local inventory versus regular product listing ads. Andy Taylor  on February 3, 2017 at 10:30 am In response to the growing popularity of searches with local intent, Google released  Local Inventory Ads  (LIA) a few years ago as a variation of  Product Listing Ads  (PLA) that include information on when a product is available at a nearby store location. Taking into account the local intent of each search query in determining when LIAs should be featured, Google can serve these units in a similar format to traditional PLAs, as well as in other LIA-specific formats, such as beneath a Google Maps display. These units are steadily becoming an important part of paid search campaigns for brands with brick-and-mortar locations, and LIA traffic increased 60 percent Y/Y in Q3 2016 for the median Merkle retailer. How