The Fundamentals of Location Targeting on Google
Essentially, location targeting on Google is crucial if you want to get the most of your ad spend and avoid wasting your budget. By the end of this guide, you will know:
- 1. How location targeting on Google works
- 2. 3 top tips for your location targeting
- 3. How to improve your targeting with local extensions
- 4. How Different Gravy Digital can better your campaigns
It’s very unlikely that your ads need to be seen by every single person on the planet. It’s much more likely that you want your ads to reach specific countries, cities or even just people within a close proximity of your brick-and-motor business.
With location targeting, you won’t waste your ad budget on irrelevant clicks from people who are outside your target area, and you will likely see an increase in people clicking on your ads who are suitable to receive your products or services.
How Does Location Targeting on Google Work?
For each Google Ads campaign, advertisers can choose locations where they want their ad to be displayed. Location targeting then permits your ads to be shown to searches in the specified locations.
Advertisers can select:
- – Entire countries
- – Locations within a country
- – Radius around a location
- – Google My Business location
Advertisers can also identify locations to exclude from their campaigns if they don’t want their ads to be displayed in certain areas.
Location targeting on Google allows businesses to deliver ads to searchers in a specific geographical region (s). For example, let’s say you own an accountancy practice with multiple office locations. Without the use of location targeting, your ads can be displayed to users worldwide, and your ads might be clicked by people in areas where you have no accountancy firms nearby. But with specified locations, your ads are only displayed in regions when you have an open accountancy practice office.
3 Top Tips for Your Location Targeting on Google
Think about your target audience. Make sure you target the locations where your audience is – which might not be the location that your business is located. For instance, if you sell a product, target all the locations that you are able to deliver to, not just where your business is physically positioned.
If you want to target a small radius, your ads might only show occasionally or not at all. Too small a target market might fail to meet Google’s targeting criteria.
Excluding locations can be just as crucial as targeting them. For example, if you can only deliver your product to specific places – then ensure your ads don’t display to places you can’t deliver to and avoid wasting clicks.
Improve Your Targeting with Location Extensions
Location extensions enable local searchers to find your businesses by displaying ads with your address, a map to your location and / or the distance to your business.
Users can click or tap the extensions to find further information about your location, which features the relevant business information in one place. Location extensions can also include your phone number or a call button that searches can click to easily contact you.
Location extensions can draw foot traffic and encourage people to pay a visit to your business. For example, an Italian restaurant might add location extensions so when people nearby search on mobile for one of their keywords ‘pizza near me’ or ‘Italian restaurant’ the extension is eligible to be displayed. The extensions could include:
- – The distance to the restaurant and its city (on mobile)
- – The restaurant’s street address (on desktop)
- – A useable ‘call’ button
- – A clickable button that leads users to a page about the location, including opening hours, phone number and directions.
Summary
Location targeting is an excellent way to ensure your ad is only displayed to those who have the ability to complete a conversion. This helps boost your ad’s relevancy, which should boost your CTR and return on investment.
As you become more familiar with location targeting, test different strategies and content. This will indicate what your audience responds to the best. Split testing different ad styles and locations can also be effective if you’re targeting several areas.
What Locations Should You Targeting?
Struggling to decide what locations your business should target on Google? Get in touch with us and discover how we can help improve your location-targeting campaigns.
Contact us for a free, no obligation consultation:
Book a meeting: michaelgoldman.co.uk/
Telephone: 0161 706 0004