Geo Targeting

Geo-targeting is also known as local PPC, pointing out the practice of targeting a variety of content or advertisements to consumers specific to their geography. In paid-campaigns, geo-targeting is most valuable when the content is targeted to local prospects or consumers. 

How does geo-targeting work?

There is a feature in Google Ads that allows advertisers to mention a location, or a bunch of locations, as specific geos/areas in which they want their ads to be shown. This is a critic tactic for businesses that rely on foot traffic and/or home deliveries, such as restaurants, brick-and-mortar stores, and ecommerce sites.

Geo-targeting best practices

Target the places or regions your business serves predominantly. Let’s take you to run a restaurant chain, and one of your branches is located in Chicago, in that scenario for you to do a perfect geo-targeting campaign, you need to set your search campaigns to only show to consumers in and around Chicago. 

For example, if you are a luxury fashion retailer and serve only in Paris, don’t show your ads outside of Paris, Versailles, Chartres or Meaux. This type of targeting is one of the primary ways to make sure that you are not wasting clicks and bucks on customers who can’t access or avail your business. 

To learn it the other way around: Try to remove locations that you don’t cater to. This practice is similar to geo-targeting negative keywords. For example, if your business is for US consumers but doesn’t cater to North America yet, then it’s wise to exclude Mexico and Canada from the search campaigns you are planning to run. 

It’s suggested to use Google Trends to find which regions that give away the most potential for conversions. It can break the entire volume of searches for provided keywords by region, country, subregion and city. If you are selling boats, it’s natural that high search volumes will be on the coasts hence it’s suggested to target your ads to consumers from these places.