One of the important aspects of Google Ads is Geofencing, also known as Geotargeting. You want to make sure you are targeting the best locations for your business. If you only serve a small geographic area, your Google Ads shouldn’t be targeted to other locations.

When to Use Google Ads Location Targeting (and When Not to)

Location targeting is more complex than meets the eye.

It’s relatively quick to set up a Google ads campaign and target locations. But if you haven’t thought about the potential ramifications, you could be wasting your budget on ads that simply don’t generate results.

Here are a few scenarios where you should and shouldn’t be using location targeting to maximize your results and hedge your potential losses.

You sell in local retail outlets or have a storefront.

If you sell products in your own local storefront, it’s a no-brainer to run location targeting campaigns.

With rapid increases in “near me” searches, it’s clear that intent is there. Plus, these searches aren’t including brand names. Meaning your product could be sold anywhere.

Your product or service can capitalize on geo hotspots

Location targeting isn’t just for those who sell products in a storefront or through a retailer.

For example, if you sell outdoor gear or sporting equipment, you can target cities or states that are known for being “outdoorsy” like Utah, Colorado, Montana and more.

These markets are much more likely to be interested in buying outdoor and sporting gear than other markets are.

You aren’t mobile optimized

Mobile traffic has been more prevalent than desktop traffic for two years now, and mobile optimization is now an essential part of location targeting or any campaign.

Does your mobile site perform? Are conversions awful on mobile? How is the user experience?

These are some key questions of self-reflection to ask yourself. Be honest.

Your answers need to be: “Yes”, “No”, “Good”!

Display Advertising

There are a couple forms of geofencing but the one that we primarily talk about here is in terms of display advertising.

Let’s say you wanted to use Google to run display ads at a particular location and, on Google, the smallest geographical location you’re able to get down to is a zip code.

What we do is we will run these ads programmatically through a DSP (Demand-Side Platform) and we will run ads that are geofenced around a particular building.

It could be a building, it could be an area, it could be a park, it could be a one-mile radius around your location.

Branding Purposes

One of the best benefits of geofencing and really the primary reason to use it is for branding purposes. You’re not usually going to see a great ROI with geofencing right out the gate.

That’s one of those things where if you’re looking to get some kind of new initiative started, it’s perfect for branding, perfect for building awareness, so you start showing these ads to people who enter into that location at any given time.

What you’re able to do beyond that is extend the window that those people will see ads for 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, up to 120 days

Short conclusion

Location-based searches are seeing explosive growth — especially when it comes to mobile traffic.

Even if you don’t have a storefront with your business name on it, you can still capitalize on traffic from high-intent location searches.