Change Location Targeting in Google Ads

Location targeting lets you control where in the world your ads are eligible to show. You can target countries, regions, cities, neighbourhoods, or a custom radius around any point on the map. This ensures your budget is spent reaching people who are actually in — or interested in — the geographic areas relevant to your business.

Yes. You can add as many locations as needed and mix different targeting levels — for example, targeting the whole of Australia plus specific neighbourhoods in Singapore. Google will show your ads to anyone in any of the locations you've added. If you need different budgets or bids per location, consider splitting them into separate campaigns for more precise control.

Google offers two location matching options. Presence only shows your ads to users physically located in your targeted area. Presence or interest (the default) also shows ads to users who have shown interest in that location through their search behaviour — for example, someone in London searching for "hotels in Paris." For most local businesses, switching to Presence only gives tighter geographic control.

Radius targeting lets you target anyone within a defined distance (in kilometres or miles) of a specific address, landmark, or map pin. You can set radii as small as 1 km and as large as 500 km. It is ideal for local businesses — restaurants, clinics, retail stores — that want to reach customers who are nearby and likely to visit in person.

Yes. In the same Locations settings, you can add location exclusions to block specific areas from seeing your ads. This is useful when you're targeting a broad region but want to exclude a city where you don't operate, or when you want to suppress ads in areas with poor historical performance. Exclusions take priority over targeted locations.

Yes. Google Ads supports location bid adjustments, which let you increase or decrease your bids by a percentage for specific locations. For example, you can bid 20% more for users in your highest-converting city and 10% less for regions that historically underperform. Bid adjustments are set per location in the Locations tab and work alongside any other bid adjustments you have active.