When I ran ads for a premium car dealership, we wanted the ads around specific places: certain restaurants and other spots where the brand's buyers spend time, all inside one county. We set the targeting that tight in Google Ads, and the campaign barely spent. Google had almost nobody in that area to show the ads to, so we widened it to the whole county, and the campaign started buying clicks.
Location targeting in Google comes down to two settings: who counts as being in your area, and how you draw the area itself. You'll find both in the campaign settings under Locations.
Presence or interest? I choose Presence
Under Location options, Google offers two choices. "Presence or interest", which Google marks as recommended, shows your ads to people in your locations and also to people who've shown interest in them, wherever those people are. "Presence" shows your ads to people who are in your locations or regularly there.
I choose Presence. A local service or a store that ships to one country gets nothing from someone in another country reading about your city, and with Presence or interest you pay for that click too. I check this setting in every account I audit, because Google sets the other option by default.
Draw the area with real borders
Google lets you target a country, a state, a county, a city, a district or a zip code, or draw a radius around a point. I get better results from areas with real borders: a city, a district, a county or a state. For an online store that ships nationwide, I target the whole country.
A common setup is a radius with bid adjustments: +20% close to the business, -10% further out. If your campaign runs on Smart Bidding, those adjustments do nothing. Google's help page says that with Target CPA, Target ROAS, Maximize Conversions and Maximize Conversion Value "you don't need to make manual bid adjustments because those strategies automatically set bids," and that a manual adjustment to a Smart Bidding strategy "won't be supported." Source: About bid adjustments. The rings you drew with different bids end up working as one area, and you lose the control you set them up for.
If you want different spend in different areas, split them into separate campaigns by city or county. Each campaign gets its own budget, and you see the results for each area on its own line.
Narrow it when the business needs it, then watch the spend
Some businesses do need a small area: a service that drives to the customer, or a store with one pickup point. Zip codes make sense when your delivery zones follow them. Narrow the area, then open the campaign every three to four days. If it spends a small part of its daily budget and gets few impressions, Google doesn't have enough people searching in that area. That's what happened with the dealership, and the fix was a wider area with the same budget.
Where precise targeting works: Meta
Meta handles small areas better. You can drop a pin on an address and set a small radius around it, and the campaign still finds people, because Meta shows ads to people who are in that area while they scroll its apps. Google needs someone in that area to type a search first. When a client wants ads around one venue or a few streets, I put that part on Meta and keep Google on the city or the county.
My tip: in Google I target places with real borders, a city, a county or a state, and I set Presence instead of Presence or interest. When a client needs a tight area, I narrow it step by step and check that the campaign still spends. The precise targeting goes to Meta.
If you're still deciding which platform should get your local budget, I compare them in Where To Put Your First Ad Budget. If you'd like me to check the location settings in your account, book a consultation.
