Locations Settings and its Importance in Google Adwords

When first setting up your Google Adwords account, the location settings can be tricky. Although it looks relatively straightforward at first, there are a few best practices to keep in mind. A Google Adwords management service will help you pinpoint your location targeting, but you can do this on your own for many accounts.

Location Setting Tips from a Google Adwords Management Service

1. The Default Targeting is the Whole USA (for U.S based advertisers)

When you first launch your campaigns, make sure you remove the default targeting. Google Adwords will set the default targeting for new campaigns to the whole USA. Unless this is your intent, you must remove this location targeting before or immediately after launching a campaign. I’ve seen multiple accounts where the business owner was unaware they were targeting the whole United States. Make sure this does not happen to your campaigns.

2. Select “People in or Regularly in Your Location” Not “Interested In”

Google Adwords gives 3 location options:

1. People in, regularly in, or who’ve shown interest in your location
2. People in or regularly in your targeted locations
3. People searching for your targeted location

There is nothing inherently wrong with any of the location options. But be aware that the default option includes people who show interest in your location. This means that if you have this option selected, anyone interested in your area still has the potential to see your ad.

“People interested in” can bring up issues where you only target one state, but traffic comes in from other states or even from other countries. If it is not your intent to reach these audiences, this can waste precious marketing dollars. It is details like this where a Google Adwords consultant will bring your account to the next level. We’ve seen cases where merely changing this setting to the only presence saved the client thousands of dollars in wasted ad spend.

4. Exclude Unwanted Locations

If you want to guarantee that your ad will not show in a specific location, you will want to look into excluding locations. This might be necessary if you know you can’t service a city, county, or zip code close to your targeted locations. You can add these locations to the excluded list, and you can be sure your ad will never serve there. Some Google Adwords Management service will even go as far as blocking all other countries or states that are not in your location. Although this can’t hurt, it is often an unnecessary step if you have the correct setting.

5. Break Out Locations into Smaller Areas

Even when targeting locations, it is helpful to break this down further. If you are targeting the whole U.S, this could mean breaking your area targeting down by state. If you target an entire state, this might mean breaking it down by Zip Code or county. Google Adwords consultants like to do this as it allows the opportunity to bid up or down locations based on performance.

Google Adwords Consultants Location Recommendations

As an expert Google Adwords Consultant, I recommend evaluating your location targeting carefully. For most accounts, you will want to choose “people in or regularly in,” but there are cases where the other two settings may be necessary. Either way, monitor your results by location on a weekly or monthly basis, and you will be off to a great start