Study first
Review the ideas behind the questions
Review the settings that control where a Google Ads campaign can try to reach people. Focus on target areas, exclusions, presence choices, language settings, and the report views that show where ads appeared.
Choose the places the business can serve
Location targeting should follow the real service area. A campaign for a local offer needs locations that match where customers can buy, book, or visit.
- Google Ads location targeting lets advertisers choose specific places where ads may be shown.
- Available location choices can include countries, areas within a country, and a radius around a location.
- Location targeting is a best-effort system and is not guaranteed to be perfectly accurate every time.
In Practice
Start with the service boundary
If a store serves one metro area, the first setup check is whether the targeted area matches that real market.
Do not treat targeting as perfect
A beginner review should still check performance after launch because location signals can vary.
Common mistakes
Choosing a broad country target when the business can only serve one city.
Set the target location to the actual service area, such as the city or a suitable radius.
Q&A
Can a local campaign target a radius around a store?
Yes. Radius targeting is one of the location choices Google Ads describes for campaign setup.
Should location performance still be reviewed after launch?
Yes. Location targeting uses several signals, so results should be checked against the campaign goal.
Use exclusions and presence choices carefully
Included locations decide where the campaign can reach. Exclusions and advanced location options narrow that reach when interest from outside the area is not useful.
- The default advanced location option can reach people in, regularly in, or interested in the targeted locations.
- Presence targeting reaches people likely to be located or regularly located in the targeted locations.
- Location exclusions help prevent ads from showing in places the advertiser does not want to serve.
In Practice
Presence is narrower than the default
If a business cannot serve people outside a location, presence targeting is the setting to review.
Exclusions are part of budget control
A campaign that targets a large area may still need city or region exclusions where the offer is not available.
Common mistakes
Assuming a city exclusion removes every person interested in that city.
Default location exclusion excludes people likely located in excluded locations; people outside those areas may still see ads.
Q&A
When does Presence targeting make sense?
It makes sense when the advertiser wants people in specific locations, not people elsewhere who are interested in those places.
Read language and location reports correctly
Language settings and location reports help check whether reach matches the plan. They do not replace the need to know the customer language and service area.
- Language settings let ads reach users on Google products and third-party sites in the languages customers speak.
- Multilingual users may see ads in a language different from their search language when Google is confident they understand the ad language.
- The Locations report includes a targeted locations view and a matched locations view.
In Practice
Language is a customer setting
Choose campaign languages around the languages customers understand, not around the account owner's interface language.
Use matched locations for where ads appeared
When checking actual delivery geography, matched locations are the report view tied to where ads appeared.
Common mistakes
Using targeted locations to prove exactly where every ad appeared.
Use matched locations when the question is where ads appeared, because targeted locations show performance by the places you selected.
Q&A
What does the targeted locations view show?
It shows performance by the locations selected in campaign targeting.
Can a multilingual user see an ad in a language different from the query?
Yes. That can happen when Google is confident the user understands the ad language.