AdWords Help

Region and City Targeting

Objective: Target your ads to small geographic areas using region and city targeting to reach a specific population. Learn why and when to use region and city targeting.

Targeting a Region or City

Region and city targeting is best used by advertisers whose audience is concentrated in defined areas. With region and city targeting, you can capture a smaller population segment and receive more qualified clicks. This helps keep your Quality Score high and your costs low. Additionally, you can create more customized ad text and landing pages that highlight special promotions or pricing based on the audience you're targeting.

Region and city targeting usually works best for region-specific businesses, such as boutiques, stores, restaurants, or hotels. For example, if you sell flowers and only deliver in the New York City area, you should target your campaign to that area only.

Region and city targeting may not be offered in your country. The available options are displayed when you set up your campaign.

Appearance of Location Targeted Ads

AdWords displays your chosen region or city (whichever is the most specific) in the last line of ad text to distinguish them from country- and territory-targeted ads. These ads appear on Google and on some of our partner sites.

Region and City Targeting Accuracy

Some countries and territories — specifically Spain, Japan, South Korea, and Brazil — lack the infrastructure necessary for us to always detect a user's location. To ensure that you reach users in these areas, we recommend that you also create a country- and territory-targeted campaign (in additional to a regional one) that includes region-specific keywords and ad text.

Here's how:

• Include the names of regions and cities you wish to target in your keywords, such as Seoul hotel and hotels in Seoul. When a user anywhere in South Korea searches for your keyword, your ad appears.
• Add the names of regions and cities you do not wish to target as negative keywords. For example, if your ad group contains the broad-matched keyword hotels, add -Sao Paulo as a negative keyword (with the hyphen) to prevent your ad from showing for the query Sao Paulo hotels.
• Include region and city names in your ad text to reinforce the local nature of your product or service. This way, if your ad appears for a user uninterested in the targeted region, the user won't click your ad.

Here's an example of a used car dealer in Madrid that has created both regional and country campaigns.