With geotargeting for local PPC, you can relate your offering to local events or use language that resonates with that community. For example, if you know there’s a concert in your town, you may want to run a special promotion for your restaurant nearby.
Say you’re a landscaper whose ideal customers are wealthy estate owners. With geotargeting, you could target the more affluent areas of a particular region. (Note: there are some industries that may not be able to layer demographic and location targeting together.)
Save money
So, including regional terms could give you a quality score boost since your keywords will be even more relevant. For example, try out a term like “contractors in boston” instead of just “best contractors” because someone searching locally will most likely be using their location as part of the query.
- An online retailer might target the entire US, or only states with major cities.
- A chain of nursing homes in New England can target only those states.
- A home service business can target the specific neighborhoods they serve.
For example, if you run a car dealership in Chicago but your ads are being triggered by searches for “new cars Boston,” add the word “Boston” to your negative keyword list to avoid your ads being triggered by further searches for Boston. To bring up the Search Terms Report, go to the Campaigns tab, click Keywords, then Details, and select All from the drop-down menu to bring up the report for all keywords in the campaign.
You can also exclude locations dominated by a competitor.
Deliver super-personalized experiences
Geotargeting is a form of targeting by location that lets your ads only appear to customers in a certain physical place, or set of places, that you specify. That way, your money goes to the right place every time.
Segment to reach the right person
When setting up your geotargeting, there is one nuance to pay attention to. When you click into the blue Location options tab, you can target by Presence (people in or regularly in your targeted locations), Search interest (people searching for your targeted locations) or both.
Get your timing right
When it comes to timing, you may think of ad scheduling but geotargeting also has a use here. Commonly referred to as geofencing, you can serve particular ads to people upon entering or exiting a geographic boundary. This could be useful if there’s a week-long conference going on near your business.
Google search interests change constantly. On top of this, consumer priorities and needs have shifted significantly due to the pandemic.
How to set up geotargeting in Google Ads
If you’re on a manual bidding strategy, you can apply bid adjustments to toss Google more or less money per click when you show to a user with a specific location. In the Locations section, you’ll see a bid adjustment column where you can apply a negative or positive percentage on top of your original keyword bids for the selected area.
1. Double-check your location options
It can be tempting to “cast a wide net,” but when you take a step back to prioritize your top-performing locations you’ll see costs go down without losing out on conversions.
To implement geotargeting in Google Ads, select the campaign you wish to target, click on the Settings tab, then scroll down to the Locations section.
4. Use bid adjustments to lower CPA
I have good news and bad news. The bad news is every advertiser has a budget they need to stick to. The good news is you can stay within budget by getting selective with where your money is going. Literally. We’re talking geotargeting.
5. Don’t be afraid to be picky
On top of this, people searching locally most likely are looking for immediate information while they’re on-the-go in your targeted location. So, these two local-specific ad extensions will make it easier for potential customers to find and contact you.
Remember, odds are the searchers are looking up queries that include your targeting location. And if you’re also using geotargeted keywords as mentioned above this effort will kick up your ad’s relevancy since you’ll be following the best practice of including the keyword in the headline. A boost in relevancy will help your ad to rank higher on the SERP.
6. Don’t forget to exclude certain locations
The most obvious reason for geotargeting is that you can avoid wasting ad spend on consumers who may qualify for your services but are not located in an area you serve. And this targeting can be as wide or narrow as you need. For example:
7. Use Google Trends to inform your geotargeting strategy
It’s always helpful to remember that PPC spend is coming out of your own (or your client’s) pockets. So, put forth paid efforts with that always in mind. That means if you ship all over the country but really only see sales coming from a few select cities, then only geotarget those places—and let your organic listings take care of the less valuable stragglers from other parts.
Google Trends is a tool that can show the interest people have in a certain keyword or topic within a particular geographic area. So, you’ll be able to see what keywords might work best in combination with your geotargeting.
In short, you’re taking your local PPC strategy to the next level to give consumers a personalized, local-friendly experience—all while saving money!
9. Include the name of your target location in your ad copy
Find more ways to save money with our free Google Ads performance Grader!
Now, you don’t have to go crazy excluding every location you’re not geotargeting—that defeats the purpose! But, if you have a specific location that maybe is close by to your target or is a red-flag (or disapproval) issue if you ever showed there, then you’ll want to cover your own butt and exclude it ahead of time.
This is a best practice with local PPC so your viewers know right off the bat that you cater to their location. A bonus would be if you can squeeze it into a headline because the matching ad text will appear in bold. This helps the ad stand out on the page as a local-friendly listing.
- Double-check your location options
- Pay attention to granular metrics
- Seek out and implement location-based negatives
- Use bid adjustments to lower CPA
- Don’t be afraid to be picky
- Exclude certain locations
- Use Google Trends to inform your targeting
- Include regional terms in your ad copy
- Include the name of your target location in your ad copy
- Leverage location extensions and call extensions
