Google Ads location targeting allows your ads to appear in the geographic locations that you select. Locations may include countries, areas within a country and a radius around a location or location groups that can include places of interest, your business locations and/or tiered demographics.
Location targeting helps you focus your advertising to help find the right customers for your business. This specific type of targeting could help increase your return on investment (ROI).
Note: Hotel Ads campaigns can't be targeted by radius.
This article explains how location targeting works and how to set it up in your account.
Keep in mind
Location targeting is based on a variety of signals, including users' settings, devices and behaviour on our platform, and is Google’s best effort to serve ads to users who meet your location settings. Because these signals vary, 100% accuracy is not guaranteed in every situation.
As always, you should check your overall performance metrics to help ensure that your settings are meeting your advertising goals and change them accordingly.
Target the right locations for your business
Get guidance on how to choose the location targets that are most appropriate for your business.
Compare location target types: countries, areas within a country or radiusReview the details below about each location targeting level and the types of businesses that could be a good fit.
| Location target | Description | Types of businesses that could benefit | Types of businesses that might not benefit |
| Countries | Targeting your ads to a country or multiple countries can be a good idea if you provide products and services to those large areas. Targeting entire countries allows you to receive more ad exposure than you would by targeting a few individual cities or regions within a country. |
|
A business that doesn't serve all regions or cities. In this case, you might target individual regions or cities instead. |
| Areas within a country | Consider using more precise targeting if your business doesn't serve all regions or cities, or you'd like to focus your advertising efforts on certain areas within a country. Depending on the country, you can target regions, cities or postcodes. |
|
A business that is trying to reach most of the regions in a country, with just a few exceptions (say, all of the US except for Alaska). In this case, it might be better to target the whole country, and then exclude the other areas. |
| Radius around a location | Radius targeting (also known as proximity targeting or 'Target a radius') allows you to choose to show your ads to customers within a certain distance from your business, rather than choosing individual cities, regions or countries. For example, radius targeting requires setting a radius of at least 1 km around any given location. |
|
A business that only wants to reach specific cities, regions or countries. |
What to consider when choosing your location targets:
- Make sure that you target the locations where you can find your customers, which isn't necessarily the same place that your business is located. For example, if you own an e-commerce company, target all the locations that you deliver to, not just where your business is physically located.
- If you target an area where your business isn't located, you won't be able to view your ad when you search on Google.com. However, you can use the Ad Preview and Diagnosis tool to find your ad.
- If you target a small radius or very small location, your ads might only show intermittently or not at all. That’s because small targets might not meet our targeting criteria.
- It's also a good idea to keep your language and location targeting settings consistent. For example, if you're targeting English-speaking users in England, then remember to target the English language, and make sure that your ads are written in English.
Example:
Adrian wants to advertise his hotel in Spain to English-speaking customers who live in England. He targets his ads in England and writes his ads in English.
Broad geo targeting
Before you set up your location targeting, consider how specific you’d like your settings to be. Broad geo targeting ('Presence or Interest') can help you reach people who not only exist in your targeted locations, but have shown an interest in your targeted locations.
With broad geo targeting, you’ll find the following benefits:
- Access to a variety of targeting locations, ranging from entire countries, areas within a country like cities or territories or a radius around a location.
- Ability to capture more conversions, clicks and impressions from users who are interested in your product or service.
While broad geo targeting is recommended as a best practice on Search, it’s important to know when targeting for 'Presence' makes sense. You should consider 'Presence' targeting in instances when:
- Your business falls within a sensitive vertical with strict targeting limitations.
- You only want to target users in specific locations and not users who may be in other locations but are still interested in your product or service.
Set up location targeting
Select an option below for location targeting instructions. Keep in mind that available location target types vary by country.
Suggested time for task: 5-7 minutes
How to reach audiences in entire countries
- In your Google Ads account, click the Campaigns icon
.
- Click the Campaigns drop-down in the section menu.
- Click Campaigns, then tick the box next to your chosen campaign.
- Click on the Settings tab.
- Click the drop-down arrow next to 'Locations'.
- Enter the name of the country that you'd like to target.
- Click Save to add the location.
.It's worth keeping in mind that selecting a small location could mean that your ads might only show intermittently or not at all. That’s because small targets might not meet our targeting criteria.
- In your Google Ads account, click the Campaigns icon
- Click the Audiences, keywords and content drop-down in the section menu.
- Click Locations.
- Click the blue pencil icon
.
- Enter the name of the location that you'd like to target. If you're entering a city name, add the country name as well. You don't want to target Paris, France, if you're trying to sell cowboy hats to customers in Paris, Texas.
- Click Save to add the location.
Here's how to set location targeting for multiple campaigns at the same time:
- In your Google Ads account, click the Campaigns icon
- Click the Campaigns drop-down in the section menu.
- Click Campaigns, then click on the Settings tab on the 'Campaigns' page.
- Tick the box next to any campaigns that you want to change.
- Click the Edit drop-down menu, then choose Change locations.
- In the box that appears, choose whether you would like to replace existing locations for the selected campaigns, add new locations to those campaigns or replace with locations from another campaign.
- Type a location in the text field. After you select a location, additional text fields will appear and you can add more locations.
- Optional: We recommend that you click Preview to view how your campaigns’ location will change.
- Click Apply.
Tip: While on the campaign settings page, you can click the filter icon 
Selecting a radius
When you target a radius, it's worth bearing in mind that selecting a small radius could mean that your ads might only show intermittently or not at all. That’s because small targets might not meet our targeting criteria.
- In your Google Ads account, click Locations from the page menu on the left.
- Click the name of the campaign you wish to edit.
- Click the blue pencil icon, then select Radius.
- In the search box, enter the address of the location that you'd like to use for the centre of the radius. Enter the radius that you'd like to target and select a unit of measurement from the drop-down menu.
- Check the map to make sure that you're targeting the correct area. When you're ready, click Save to add the radius target.
- Click Save
Advanced: Targeting multiple locations in bulk
Google Ads allows you to add a bulk list of up to 1000 location targets at a time, rather than adding each location individually. We also offer tools for bulk editing. Click on an option below to find out more.
How to add multiple location targets in bulk- In your Google Ads account, click the Campaigns icon
- Click the Audiences, keywords and content drop-down in the section menu.
- Click Locations.
- From the 'Campaign' column, click the name of the campaign that you wish to edit, then click the blue pencil icon
- Tick the box next to 'Add locations in bulk'.
- In the box, paste or type the names of up to 1000 locations that you'd like to target (with each location on a separate line), and add locations from one country at a time. Check the list of locations that can be targeted.
- To target more than 1000 locations, you can add location targets in bulk multiple times. For example, if you'd like to target 1,200 locations, add your first 1,000 location targets. When you've finished, add the remaining 200 locations.
- To target a city or postcode, include the full name of the country or state – for example, Oxford, England or 94103, California.
- If you wish to restrict your results to one country, click the field below the location entry box and select your desired country.
- Click Search.
- We'll display all locations that matched your search in the review panel. Review your results, then click Target all to target all of the locations that matched your search. To target individual locations from the review panel, click Target next to the location that you wish to add as a target.
- If you searched for any location targets that weren't found, you'll find them in the box where you entered the list of locations.
- Clicking the grey 'x' button will remove all locations from the review panel as well as from your existing location targets or location exclusions.
- (Optional) To exclude multiple locations at once, follow these steps:
- Click on the 'Locations exclusions' tab.
- Click the blue pencil icon
- Follow the above mentioned steps numbered 5–8.
- Review your results and then click Exclude all.
- Under 'Targeted locations', you'll find the location targets that you've just added, or under 'Excluded locations' you’ll find the location targets that you’ve just excluded.
- Click Save.
Location targeting data template(download CSV)
| Attribute | Specification | Sample values |
| Address Line 1 | The complete and exact street address for the location (80 characters maximum). | 43 River Street |
| Address Line 2 | The mailbox or suite number, if needed (80 characters maximum). | B3 |
| Town/City | The location’s city. | San Francisco |
| County | The location’s state or province. | California |
| Postcode | The location’s postal code. If it begins with zero, make sure that your spreadsheet formatting doesn’t remove the zero as the first digit. | 94102 |
| Country | The country code. You can also use the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code. | U.S. |
You can use the geographical targeting table to find all the locations that you can target and how you should refer to them in your template.
- Google Ads Editor: Our free, downloadable application for managing your Google Ads campaigns offline. Learn more about how to Add multiple location targets.
- Google Ads API: Our Google Ads API allows developers to build applications that interact directly with the Google Ads platform. Learn more about Google Ads API geo targeting options.
You can review location target limits for your campaign.
