Note: Google Ads location targeting doesn’t determine geographic borders.
Google Ads location targeting allows your ads to appear in the geographic locations that you select. Locations may include countries, areas within a country, and a radius around a location or location groups that can include places of interest, your business locations and/or tiered demographics.
Location targeting helps you focus your advertising to help find the right customers for your business. This specific type of targeting could help increase your return on investment (ROI).
Note: Hotel Ads campaigns can't be targeted by radius.
This article explains how location targeting works and how to set it up in your account.
Keep in mind
Location targeting is based on a variety of signals, including users' settings, devices, and behavior on our platform, and is Google’s best effort to serve ads to users who meet your location settings. Because these signals vary, 100% accuracy is not guaranteed in every situation.
As always, you should check your overall performance metrics to help ensure your settings are meeting your advertising goals and change them as needed.
Target the right locations for your business
Get guidance on how to choose the location targets that are most appropriate for your business.
Review the details below about each location targeting level and the types of businesses that could be a good fit.
| Location target |
Description |
Types of businesses that could benefit |
Types of businesses that might not benefit |
| Countries |
Targeting your ads to a country or multiple countries can be a good idea if you provide products and services to those large areas. Targeting entire countries allows you to receive more ad exposure than you would by targeting a few individual cities or regions within a country. |
- A national business serving an entire country
- An online retailer shipping worldwide
- An international business selling to several countries
|
A business that doesn't serve all regions or cities. In this case, you might target individual regions or cities instead. |
| Areas within a country |
Consider using more precise targeting if your business doesn't serve all regions or cities, or you'd like to focus your advertising efforts on certain areas within a country. Depending on the country, you can target regions, cities, or postal codes. |
- A business that serves a local neighborhood
- A business with special offers in selected locations
- A business selling products in selected regions or cities
|
A business that is trying to reach most of the regions in a country, with just a few exceptions (say, all of the US except for Alaska). In this case, it might be better to target the whole country, and then exclude the other areas. |
| Radius around a location |
Radius targeting (also known as proximity targeting or "Target a radius") allows you to choose to show your ads to customers within a certain distance from your business, rather than choosing individual cities, regions, or countries. Radius targeting requires setting a radius of at least 1 km around any given location. |
- A business that delivers within a selected radius
- A local business whose customer base is within a radius around the business
|
A business that only wants to reach specific cities, regions, or countries. |
What to consider when choosing your location targets:
- Be sure to target the locations where you can find your customers, which isn't necessarily the same place that your business is located. For example, if you own an e-commerce company, target all the locations you ship to, not just where your business is physically located.
- If you target an area where your business isn't located, you won't be able to view your ad when you search on Google.com. However, you can use the Ad Preview and Diagnosis Tool to find your ad.
- If you target a small radius or very small location, your ads might only show intermittently or not at all. That’s because small targets might not meet our targeting criteria.
- It's also a good idea to keep your language and location targeting settings consistent. For example, if you're targeting English-speaking users in England, remember to target the English language, and be sure that your ads are written in English.
Example
Adrian wants to advertise his hotel in Spain to English-speaking customers who live in England. He targets his ads in England and writes his ads in English.
Broad geo targeting
Before you set up your location targeting, consider how specific you’d like your settings to be. Broad geo targeting ("Presence or Interest") can help you reach people who not only exist in your targeted locations, but have shown an interest in your targeted locations.
With broad geo targeting, you’ll find the following benefits:
- Access to a variety of targeting locations, ranging from entire countries, areas within a country like cities or territories, or a radius around a location.
- Ability to capture more conversions, clicks, and impressions from users who are interested in your product or service.
Tip: Advertisers who switched location targeting from "Presence" to "Presence or Interest" in the Travel, Real Estate, and Education verticals view +5% more conversions on Search campaigns. (Source: Google internal data, Global, 5/21/2022 - 6/1/2022).
While broad geo targeting is recommended as a best practice on Search, it’s important to know when targeting for “Presence” makes sense. You should consider “Presence” targeting in instances when:
- Your business falls within a sensitive vertical with strict targeting limitations.
- You only want to target users in specific locations and not users who may be in other locations but are still interested in your product or service.
Select an option below for location targeting instructions. Keep in mind that available location target types vary by country.
Suggested time for task: 5-7 minutes
Note: Google Ads only permits targeting for locations that adhere to minimum privacy thresholds where minimum area and minimum user counts are met. For example, we do not allow radius targeting under 1 km around any given location. If your desired location target doesn't adhere to these privacy thresholds, then you'll not be able to target it in the Google Ads interface.
How to reach audiences in entire countries
- Go to Campaigns within the Campaigns menu
.
- Click the Settings tab.
- Click the name of the campaign you wish to edit.
- Click the Locations drop-down panel.
- Enter the name of the country that you'd like to target.
- Click Save to add the location.
It's worth keeping in mind that selecting a small location could mean that your ads might only show intermittently or not at all. That’s because small targets might not meet our targeting criteria.
- Go to Locations within the Campaigns menu .
- Click the blue pencil icon
.
- Click Select a campaign.
- Click the name of the campaign you wish to edit.
- Enter the name of the location that you'd like to target.
- If you're entering a city name, add the country name as well. You don't want to target Paris, France, if you're trying to sell cowboy hats to customers in Paris, Texas.
- Click Save to add the location.
Try it now
Here's how to set location targeting for multiple campaigns at the same time:
- Go to Campaignswithin the Campaigns menu .
- Click the Settings tab.
- Check the box next to any campaigns that you want to change.
- Click the Edit drop-down menu, then choose Change locations.
- In the box that appears, choose whether you'd like to replace existing locations for the selected campaigns, add new locations to those campaigns, or replace with locations from another campaign.
- Type a location in the text field. After you select a location, additional text fields will appear and you can add more locations.
- Optional: Click Preview to view how your campaigns’ location will change.
- Click Apply.
Tip: While on the campaign settings page, you can click the filter icon 
to show only campaigns that match specific criteria. This can make it easier to make changes in bulk to certain campaigns.
Selecting a radius
When you target a radius, it's worth keeping in mind that selecting a small radius could mean that your ads might only show intermittently or not at all. That’s because small targets might not meet our targeting criteria.
- Go to Locations within the Campaigns menu .
- Click the blue pencil icon .
- Click Select a campaign.
- Click the name of the campaign you wish to edit.
- Click the radio button beside “Radius”.
- In the search box, enter the address of the location you'd like to use for the center of the radius. Enter the radius that you'd like to target and select a unit of measurement from the dropdown menu.
- Check the map to make sure you're targeting the correct area. When you're ready, click Save to add the radius target.
- Click Save.
Locations of interest
Locations of interest is an optional, ad group-level feature that you can use to reach users who are searching for or have expressed interest in specific geographic areas. Set your preferred location of interest and add phrase and broad match keywords that are relevant to your business in your ad groups for best results.
You can select more than one location of interest and have the option to specify multiple locations for your ad groups in addition to the location targeting settings at the campaign level.
The location you choose to target at the campaign level and your location of interest can be different. For example, when you want to promote your business in “Spain” to users in the “US”, you can create an ad group with Spain set as your locations of interest in a campaign with the US set as the campaign-level location targeting.
Example
A user present in Chicago searching for “hotels in Madrid” or “hotels in Paris”.
When setting locations of interest, keep in mind that the location mentioned in the user’s query is considered first and if there’s no mention of a location in the query, the user’s location of presence is taken into account.
Note: Users matching an ad group using the locations of interest feature must still meet campaign-level geo-targeting criteria. If the ad group-level and campaign-level locations are different, the user must meet both. For example, by being present in the campaign-level location and expressing interest in the ad group-level location.
You can’t use the locations of interest feature for locations that are excluded at the campaign level.
How to set up locations of interest for ad groups when creating a Search campaign
- Go to the Create button
and click Campaign.
- Create a new Search campaign.
- When you reach the “Keywords and ads” page in the creation flow, scroll down and click More settings.
- Click the Locations of interest dropdown panel.
- Add the locations you intend to target.
- Click Next and complete the remaining campaign creation steps.
Advanced: Targeting multiple locations in bulk
Google Ads allows you to add a bulk list of up to 1000 location targets at a time, rather than adding each location individually. We also offer tools for bulk editing. Click an option below to find out more.
- Go to Locations within the Campaigns menu .
- Click the blue pencil icon .
- Click Select a campaign and select the campaign you wish to edit.
- Check the box next to "Add locations in bulk”.
- In the box, paste or type the names of up to 1000 locations that you'd like to target (with each location on a separate line), and add locations from one country at a time. Check the list of locations that can be targeted.
- To target more than 1000 locations, you can add location targets in bulk multiple times. For example, if you'd like to target 1200 locations, add your first 1000 location targets. When you're done, add the remaining 200 locations.
- To target a city or zip code, include the full name of the country or state, for example, Oxford, England or 94103, California.
- If you wish to restrict your results to one country, click the field below the location entry box and select your desired country.
- Click Search.
- We'll display all locations that matched your search in the review panel. Review your results, then click Target All to target all of the locations that matched your search. To target individual locations from the review panel, click Target next to the location you wish to add as a target.
- If you searched for any location targets that weren't found, you'll find them in the box where you entered the list of locations.
- Clicking the gray “x” button will remove all locations from the review panel, and from your existing location targets or location exclusions.
- (Optional) To exclude multiple locations at once, follow these steps:
- Click the Locations exclusions tab.
- Click the blue pencil icon .
- Follow the above mentioned steps numbered 4-7.
- Review your results and then click Exclude all.
- Under "Targeted location", you'll find the location targets that you've just added, or under “Excluded location” you’ll find the location targets you’ve just excluded.
- Click Save.
Try it now
Location targeting data template(download CSV)
| Attribute |
Specification |
Sample Values |
| Address line 1 |
The complete and exact street address for the location (80 characters maximum). |
43 River Street |
| Address line 2 |
The mailbox or suite number, if needed (80 characters maximum). |
B3 |
| City |
The location’s city. |
San Francisco |
| State/province |
The location’s state or province. |
California |
| Postal code |
The location’s postal code. If it begins with zero, make sure that your spreadsheet formatting doesn’t remove the zero as the first digit. |
94102 |
| Country |
The country code. You can also use the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code. |
US |
You can use the geographical targeting table to find all the locations that you can target and how you should refer to them in your template.
Related links
to show only campaigns that match specific criteria. This can make it easier to make changes in bulk to certain campaigns.
and click Campaign.