How should you set Google Ads location targeting?

You should set Google Ads location targeting to the areas you can serve, with the Presence option so your ads reach people in or regularly in those areas, and with the places you can't serve excluded. Target where your buyers are when they search, which isn't always where your office is, and switch to Presence or interest when they search from somewhere else before they move or travel there. Give a city its own campaign only when searchers there need a different message or page.

Every campaign has a location setting, and for a business that serves one area it's set once. Location becomes a structural decision for businesses that serve several cities or markets: a testing lab with one lab and technicians in other cities, an apartment operator with buildings across several neighborhoods, a firm that takes work in some states and not others, or a charter business whose buyers plan a trip from home. ReClick confirms each new client's service area and any exclusions at the kickoff call, before the first campaign is built, because the answer shapes the whole account.

What is location targeting in Google Ads?

Location targeting in Google Ads is the campaign setting that decides where your ads can show. You can target whole countries, areas within a country such as states, cities, or postal codes, or a radius around an address, and you can exclude any of them. Every ad group in a campaign shares its locations, so 2 areas that need different settings need different campaigns.

Google describes location targeting as a best effort, without a guarantee of accuracy, so some clicks will come from outside your area however you set it. The settings below keep that share small.

Should you target cities, postal codes, or a radius?

Target named areas when your service area follows city or state lines, and a radius when it follows distance from an office or a set of buildings. Google requires a radius of at least 1 km around a location, and Google warns that a very small target may show ads only now and then, or not at all.

For example, an apartment operator whose buildings sit in 3 neighborhoods does better with a radius around those neighborhoods than with the whole city. Citywide targeting pays for clicks from neighborhoods the portfolio doesn't operate in.

Should you target where your business is or where your buyers are?

Target where your buyers are when they search, which isn't always where your business is. A testing lab with technicians in 3 cities targets all 3, including the ones without a lab. A charter business is the opposite case: its buyers plan the trip from home, far from the destination. Porter Yachts, a luxury yacht charter business with boats in the US, the Bahamas, and the Mediterranean, is targeted both ways. Some of its campaigns target the US on Presence, reaching buyers where they live, with the destination in the keywords and ads. Others, run as a test, target a radius around a destination such as Miami on Presence or interest, which reaches the people searching for that destination from wherever they are. Neither set excludes any geography.

The Porter Yachts case study shows how the account's Search campaigns were rebuilt around destination-specific searches in place of a generic location setup.

Which location option should you choose?

Choose Presence, the option that shows ads to people in or regularly in your targeted locations, unless your buyers search from somewhere else before they move or travel there. Google's default and recommended option is Presence or interest, which also reaches people who have shown interest in those locations, such as through the words in their searches, wherever they are. ReClick sets campaigns to Presence by default, and to Presence or interest where the searcher is moving or travelling to the place they're searching for.

Presence keeps the budget on the people the business can serve. Presence or interest can show a Montreal lab's ads to someone in another country who searched for Montreal, and a lead that far away is rarely one the lab can take.

When is Presence or interest the better choice?

Presence or interest is the better choice when the searcher is moving or travelling to the place they're searching for. A renter moving to Los Angeles searches for apartments there before arriving, and a charter client plans a week on the water from home. Presence would miss both, because neither is in the area yet. Google's page on advanced location options reports that advertisers in travel, real estate, and education found 5% more Search conversions with Presence or interest. ReClick uses it on accounts such as real estate leasing and yacht charters, on the campaigns that target the destination. A campaign that targets where the buyers live stays on Presence.

Exclusions work on Presence by default, so excluding an area blocks people located there. Exclude the areas inside your targets that you can't serve, such as a county your technicians don't reach or a state where you can't take the work. Demand Gen campaigns don't offer the Presence choice, so ReClick excludes every country outside the target market by hand in those campaigns.

Does Presence stop every click from outside your area?

No. Location targeting is a best effort, and some clicks still come from outside the area. ReClick catches them in its weekly review of the Google Ads search terms report: a search that names a place the client doesn't serve gets a negative keyword, the same as any other irrelevant search.

When should each city get its own campaign?

Give a city its own campaign only when searchers there need something different from searchers elsewhere: a different language, a different offer, or a page that has to explain how you serve a city without a local office. When only the place name changes, an ad group per city inside one campaign is enough.

The reason is data. Splitting campaigns by state or city with no difference in intent only divides the conversions each campaign gets, and Smart Bidding learns from the conversions in each campaign or shared bidding strategy. ReClick moves a campaign's optimization from form submissions to qualified leads once it, or the shared bidding strategy it belongs to, has 30 or more qualified leads in 30 days. A campaign per city reaches that later than one campaign for all of them.

A new campaign also doesn't fix an area that won't spend. If the targeting settings can't push more budget into a city, a separate campaign for that city won't either.

When is an ad group per city enough?

An ad group per city or neighborhood is enough when the people searching there want the same service and only the place differs. The ad group carries keywords that name the place, ads that repeat it, and a landing page about that place. Renters search by neighborhood, so the page on Google Ads for real estate builds an apartment operator's account as an ad group per neighborhood, with radius targeting around the areas it operates in and a page showing that neighborhood's units.

The Alpine LA Properties case study shows that build for a Los Angeles apartment operator, from citywide targeting replaced by a radius around its neighborhoods to ad groups and sitelinks that name each one.

When does a city need its own campaign?

A city needs its own campaign when the people searching there need a different message or page, not just a different place name. Two cases come up most in lead generation accounts:

• A second language. In a bilingual market such as Montreal, French and English searchers convert at different rates and respond to different copy. Each language gets its own campaign, ads, and pages, with the campaign's language setting to match, as Google advises keeping language and location settings consistent.
• A city without a local office. People searching in a city where you have no address want a local provider. The page for that city has to show how the service reaches them: pickup or mail-in, accreditation, a turnaround commitment, and proof that stands in for the local address.

Testing labs often meet both. The page on Google Ads for labs and testing services sets out the build: a campaign and a dedicated landing page for each market, and a campaign for each language in a bilingual market, with residential and commercial work kept apart.

The Axxon Lab case study shows that build for a Montreal lab that serves Ottawa and Edmonton without a lab address there. Montreal runs separate English and French campaigns, while Ottawa runs in English only. A city that gains a local office gains an address to promote, the way the Montreal lab's address shows with its ads from its Google Business Profile.

Should you split campaigns by state?

No, not without a difference in intent. A campaign per state gives each one fewer conversions to learn from, and bidding learns less in all of them. Keep the states in one campaign's locations, and split only where searchers in a state need a different message or page.

How do you write ads and pages for each location?

Write ads and pages that name the place the searcher named. Someone who typed "mold inspection Ottawa" should see Ottawa in the ad and on the page, which means a page for each market rather than one page for every city. Pages built for one campaign's ads make that possible, for the reasons set out in dedicated landing pages vs. your website.

Three things carry the place into the ad:

• Keywords that name the place, in the ad group for that place.
• Location insertion, which fills part of a headline with the searcher's location and suits "near me" searches. ReClick tests it at the city or state level where it fits the account.
• Location assets, which show your address with the ad. ReClick turns on automatic location assets wherever the business has physical locations.

A city without a local office needs more from its page than its name. People searching there want a local provider, and when the page shows a headquarters address in another city, many of them leave. The page has to do the work the address would: photographs of the actual work, accreditation where a quick reader will see it, a plain explanation of how pickup or mail-in works, a turnaround commitment, and the form near the top.

How do you adjust spend by location?

Adjust spend by location with exclusions, budgets, and pages under Smart Bidding, and with bid adjustments only on manual bidding. On Manual CPC, a location bid adjustment raises or lowers bids in an area by −90% to +900%. Smart Bidding strategies, including Maximize Conversions and Target CPA (target cost per action), don't use manual bid adjustments. They set each bid from the signals in the auction, and location is one of them.

ReClick reviews each account's location results every month. An area that produces leads that never qualify gets excluded. A market that keeps producing qualified leads at its target while it loses impression share to budget gets more budget first. A market whose ads win clicks while its page loses them gets its page rebuilt.

Time zones matter too. Google's ad schedules run on the account's time zone, so an account serving cities in 2 time zones has to adjust its schedule for the gap. ReClick reads hour-of-day results in each location's local time, over a long enough window, before acting on them.

How do you check where your leads come from?

Check where your leads come from in 2 places: the location reports in Google Ads and your customer relationship management (CRM) system. The Google Ads locations report has 2 views. Targeted locations shows results by the locations you set. Matched locations shows results by the locations where your ads appeared, which can be searchers' physical locations or locations of interest. A matched location far outside your service area points to a setting to fix. Once location assets are added, the distance report also sorts results by how far the searcher was from your nearest location.

The CRM shows what Google Ads can't: whether the leads from each area qualified. A market whose leads qualify less often than the others has a page or offer problem there, even when its cost per lead looks the same as everywhere else. For accounts that serve several markets, ReClick reports qualified inquiries by market, so each city's cost per qualified lead is visible on its own.

What are the most common location targeting mistakes?

The most common location targeting mistakes reach people the business can't serve, or split the account where nothing differs:

• Leaving Presence or interest on for a local service. For a business that serves only the people in its area, the default reaches people elsewhere who only searched for it.
• Targeting more than you serve. Citywide or statewide targets pay for clicks from places the business doesn't reach.
• A campaign per state or city with no difference in intent. Each campaign learns from fewer conversions.
• One landing page for every city. The page can't name the place the searcher named.
• No exclusions inside the target. Counties or states you can't serve stay in the auction.
• Language settings that don't match the market. French searchers in Montreal see English ads, or none.
• Targets too small to serve. Ads show only now and then.
• Changing location settings often. Each change resets some of what bidding has learned.

How does ReClick set location targeting?

ReClick confirms each client's service area and exclusions at the kickoff call, before the first campaign is built. Campaigns are set to Presence, or to Presence or interest where searchers are moving or travelling to the area, with the places the client can't serve excluded. Cities share a campaign as ad groups with their own ads and pages until a second language, or a page that has to explain service without a local office, gives them a reason to split. The location results are read every month against the qualified leads from the CRM.

Location targeting is part of ReClick's Google Ads management (PPC management), with landing pages for each market added to the Google Ads engagement and built by the same team.