Target your ads to people in—or who've shown interest in—geographic locations relevant to where you do business. You can select whether you’d like your ad to appear for someone’s physical location, locations of interest, or both. Location targeting can help you make sure your ads are relevant to the people who see them, which can help boost your campaign's value.
Location options let you include or exclude people based on:
- Where they're likely to be located
- The places they’ve shown interest in
By default, location targeting includes both physical locations and locations of interest, but advanced advertisers can use these options to limit their targeting to a subset of these categories. This article goes over the advanced options for location targeting and location exclusion.
Compare location targeting options
By default, you'll be able to reach people who are likely to be located, or who are regularly located in your targeted areas, as well as those who show interest in your targeted geographic areas. People can show interest through terms used in their searches, if they were recently in a location, or through content they view related to the location (such as pages or sites).
Areas that people show interest in are also known as locations of interest, which we identify regardless of the Google search domain the person searches on.
You have the option to switch to a different way of targeting. Let's take a look at our available targeting options.
Note
In Microsoft Advertising campaigns that are created in Search Ads 360, the following location targeting options are selected by default:
- People in your targeted locations
- People searching for or viewing pages about your targeted locations
The options aren't supported in Search Ads 360 and can only be changed in Microsoft Advertising. Learn more about the options that enable you to specify who should see your ads in Microsoft Advertising Help.
Reach people in, or who show interest in, your targeted locations
This recommended option lets you reach people who are likely to be located, or who are regularly located in your targeted location, as well as people who have shown interest in your targeted location. Some of the ways that we might detect a location of interest are based on:
- Terms used in searches that indicate a location.
- Past searches that indicated a location of interest.
- A person’s past physical locations.
- The content and context of a website where an ad is displayed. Keep in mind that the mention of a location on a page doesn't always indicate an interest in that location.
- Searches on Google Maps or Google Maps for Mobile.
- If someone sets a custom location for Google search results.
Most campaigns will see a decrease in impressions when switching from the default targeting option. We suggest that you change your targeting option only if you want to refine your campaign’s traffic.
Reach people in your targeted locations
This option lets you show your ads to people who are likely to be located, or who are regularly located in your target area. This does not include people who searched for your target locations but whose physical location was outside the target location at the time of searching.
The Google Ads system uses a number of factors to determine someone’s physical location and whether to show your ad. When possible, we determine physical location based on someone's computer or mobile device location, or other methods.
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IP address:
Location is typically based on the Internet Protocol (IP) address, which is a unique number assigned by Internet Service Providers to each computer connected to the Internet. If a device is connected to a Wi-Fi network, we may detect the Wi-Fi network's IP address to determine physical location. If a mobile device is connected to a mobile carrier's proxy server, we may use the carrier IP to determine the device's location. -
Device location:
Depending on a user's location settings, we may be able to use a precise location for advertising, based on one of these sources of location data:-
GPS: Accuracy varies depending on GPS signal and connection.
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Wi-Fi: Accuracy should be similar to the access range of a typical Wi-Fi router.
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Bluetooth: If Bluetooth and/or Bluetooth scanning are enabled on a device, a publicly broadcast Bluetooth signal can provide an accurate indication of location
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Google's cell ID (cell tower) location database: Used in the absence of Wi-Fi or GPS. Accuracy is dependent on how many cell towers are located within an area and available data, and some devices don't support cell ID location.
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When you target an area, we may also show your ad to customers in nearby, closely related areas that normally couldn't be targeted because of low population, insufficient data about the geographic area, or because that level of targeting isn't available. For example, if you target the city of Portland, we may also show your ads to people in nearby suburbs of Portland.
Reach people who are searching for your targeted locations
This option lets you show your ads to anyone who searches on Google for your targeted location. If a person doesn’t specify a location in their search, then the system uses their physical location for targeting.
Compare location exclusion options
By default, you'll exclude people located in or showing interest in your excluded locations.
You have the option to change your default setting to exclude only people who are located in your excluded locations. Let's take a look at our available exclusion options, and examine how they work with some example campaigns.
Don’t show ads to people in, or who show interest in, your excluded locations
This option won't show your ads to people who are likely to be located in your excluded location OR who showed interest in your excluded location.
Don’t show ads to people within your excluded locations
This option keeps your ads from appearing to people who are likely to be located in the areas you've excluded. People who are outside these areas may still see your ads.
On the Google Display Network, Google may infer a location associated with a page or site when they believe it will be useful for targeting your ads. A location mentioned on a page may not always indicate interest in that location. For example, someone who is reading news about San Francisco isn’t necessarily interested in ads for San Francisco florists. Similarly, Google might infer an interest in a location, even if that location isn't specifically mentioned on a page, but the context of the entire site indicates an interest in that place.