Earlier this year, Apple announced the launch of Apple Business Connect, a free web-based tool that allows businesses of all sizes to customise the way their information appears across Apple apps. This means that now brands will have more control of the information published to their Apple Maps listings and will also benefit from new features being introduced by Apple.
Via Localistico, brands will be able to:
- Publish your location information to Apple Maps
- Discover and view Apple Maps profiles alongside the profiles from your other enabled platforms
- From the metrics tab, view performance metrics including impressions and clicks
- From the promotions tab, post to Apple Maps using showcase posting (this feature is currently only available in countries where English is the first spoken language)
Creating your Apple Business Connect Account
In order to take advantage of Apple Business Connect, brands need to create their own Business Connect account and share access (delegate) to Localistico.
- Go to Apple Business Connect https://businessconnect.apple.com/ and sign in with the Apple ID you use for your business, (if your company uses managed Apple IDs, contact your company’s IT department). If you have over 25 locations you should select the enterprise option. More information can be found here
- Create your businesses. A business is the second level object in Apple Business Connect. Companies should create one business for each country where they operate.
For example in the graphic below Acme Inc. the company (step 1) has Better Bag businesses in the USA & GBR (step 2):
3. Set the same company name in Apple Business Connect that you added in Localistico as your business name. If you also use a brand name in Localistico, please use this one as your company name in Apple Business Connect.
4. Once your Apple Business Connect account is created, we will ask you to give access to Localistico (‘delegate access’ in Apple terminology). Go to Apple Business Connect and:
a. Click on your company name in Apple
b. Click on the shared tab
c. Click share access
d. Enter the Localistico Business Connect partner organisation ID
i. 1491047055605284608
e. Select admin role
f. Select all businesses or a specific business
g. Click invite
Please note that each business must be delegated individually to Localistico.
Once you have delegated access to Localistico for all your businesses in Apple Business Connect please login to the Localistico platform and navigate to Settings > Platforms > Apple Maps.
Click on 'Replace Credential' in the credentials section as shown in the screenshot above.
Please enter your Company ID that can be found in Apple Business Connect under the business details. By entering your Company ID you will start publishing to Apple Maps via the delegated path using your own business credentials. Please don't forget to agree to the terms and conditions before saving.
Please note that profiles should not be created manually, as they are created from Localistico.