Google Ads location targeting allows you to select geographic areas where your ads can appear, but it can also be used as an optimisation tool to help increase your return on investment (ROI).
Understanding your performance by location can help you allocate more of your online advertising efforts and budget in regions where your business is the most successful.
We've listed some handy tips below to help you refine your location targeting.
View performance by location
You can use your geographic performance data to confirm that your ads are appearing in certain locations, as well as compare how your ads are performing in different locations. Use this information to pinpoint the areas that you'd like to focus on and take a look at the tips in this list to help you make your ads more effective in each area.
Example
You have a campaign that targets the entire country of Japan, but you're located in a different country. By viewing your geographic performance data, you confirm that your ads are getting impressions in cities throughout Japan. Also, you find that your ads do better in Tokyo and Kyoto, so you decide to come up with a new advertising strategy that targets those areas.
Assign more or less of your budget to certain areas
If your campaign is performing better in certain areas, you may want to run separate campaigns targeted only to the more successful areas. This allows you to increase your keyword bids and budgets to maximise ad impressions in high-performing cities. Likewise, consider creating a separate campaign that targets areas outside your top-performing cities. You may want to use the same keywords as your other campaigns, but set lower keyword bids.
Example
You've been targeting the entire United States in your snorkelling equipment ad campaign, but you sell most of your snorkelling equipment to customers in Hawaii. You create a separate campaign targeting only Hawaii so you can easily see how your campaign performs in that state, and then adjust your budget accordingly.
Write ad text that stands out in certain geographic areas
Highlight unique selling points of your business, such as certain products or services that are more likely to interest customers in those areas. You can also offer promotions available only to certain areas.
Example
You find that your online clothing store sells the most red mittens to people in the county of Lancashire. To attract customers in Lancashire, you create an ad targeted to Lancashire customers that promotes your red mittens.
Use location-specific landing pages
If you have different landing pages on your website for each region that you serve, send customers to the landing page most relevant to their geographic areas. That way, they don't have to spend time searching for the information that's relevant to them.
Example
You're an estate agent and your website has listings for apartments for sale throughout Cornwall. If a customer is searching for apartments in Truro, you'll want to send them to your landing page with Truro apartments, rather than Penzance apartments.
Use location assets to highlight your business address
If it's important for your customers to know where your business is located, it can be helpful to add location assets to your ads. Location assets merge your business address and phone number seamlessly with your ad text.
If all of the businesses in your location assets are in the UK, you can target a radius around your location assets to show ads to people located near your business. With bid multipliers, you can also set different bids for these areas.
Example
Let's say that you own a bicycle repair shop in Birmingham. With location assets, a customer near your shop who searches for bicycle repair shops can see your ad, along with your full address and phone number, and head your way with his flat tyre.
Exclude regions that don't perform well
If you're consistently getting clicks with a low conversion rate from certain regions, or clicks from regions where you don't want your ads to show, consider excluding these regions from your targeting.
Example
If you've been targeting the entire United Kingdom, but you find that clicks from Lancashire aren't converting well for your business, you can exclude Lancashire to avoid showing your ads for that area.
