You run a local service, choose your area in Google Ads, and start receiving enquiries for jobs you cannot take. Before you cut the budget or exclude a long list of towns, check how the campaign interprets location.
Google’s default Presence or interest setting includes people elsewhere who show interest in your target area. Its narrower Presence option covers people Google considers to be in that area or regularly there. Those are different audiences. Google explains both location options here.
This guide focuses on Google Ads Search campaigns. The aim is to reduce unsuitable enquiries while protecting customers you can serve. A person’s location when they search and the location of the job are not necessarily the same.
Define where the work happens first
Start with a business rule your team can apply consistently. For an installer, that might be the property’s postcode. For a showroom, it might be whether someone can realistically visit. For a hotel, customers may be planning a stay from anywhere.
A hypothetical kitchen showroom illustrates the difference. Someone nearby seeking a design appointment is a clear prospect. Someone further away arranging a kitchen for a local property may also be suitable. Someone nearby wanting installation at a property beyond your coverage may be unsuitable.
Before editing the campaign, agree:
- Which service or product this campaign promotes.
- Where you can deliver it profitably and reliably.
- Whether the customer needs to be nearby now, or only the eventual job or visit.
- Which exceptions the sales team can accept.
Use that rule when reviewing enquiries. Otherwise, the advertising team may exclude people the sales team would happily help, or count enquiries for distant jobs as successful leads.
Choose the location option that fits the buying journey
For an urgent service aimed at nearby customers, the narrower option is a sensible starting point. For advance bookings, relocation or purchases made on someone else’s behalf, interest-based reach may have a commercial purpose.
Make this a campaign-specific decision. One business might want tightly local repair enquiries and broader interest in its destination showroom. Applying a single rule across both would ignore how customers buy.
Record why you chose the setting. “Customers need an appointment at our premises” is useful. “This is always the best setting” gives the next person managing the account nothing to work with.
Presence is not a postcode guarantee
Google uses signals including IP addresses and available device-location information. It can also serve ads in nearby, closely related areas under certain conditions, and explicitly says location targeting is not completely accurate. See its explanation of geographic targeting.
Treat the setting as an audience control, then qualify the enquiry using the actual service location. Do not assume every person reached must live inside the boundary, or that every unexpected enquiry proves the setting has failed.
Audit the whole campaign’s target area
Check each relevant Search campaign individually. Keep a record of the current targets, exclusions and location option before changing them, so you can review the effect and restore the previous setup if needed.
In the campaign’s settings, open Locations and review the complete saved list. Look for inherited national coverage, old branches, overlapping targets and radii centred on the wrong premises. A campaign name containing your town is not evidence that its saved coverage matches your intentions.
Google supports country targets, supported areas within countries and radius targeting. Its location setup guidance explains how to add and review them. Very small targets may serve intermittently or fail to meet targeting criteria; radius targets must be at least one kilometre.
As a practical planning check, compare a radius with the journeys your team actually makes. A circle is a poor substitute for your own knowledge of access, travelling time and delivery costs. Choose supported areas that represent coverage where that is more useful than a single circle.
Confirm the saved location option as well as the map. Keep the budget, ads and bidding unchanged during the initial review where possible, so several simultaneous changes do not obscure what happened.
Check an additional setting if AI Max is enabled
AI Max for Search has a separate ad-group-level locations-of-interest control, described in Google’s current AI Max documentation. Review it if it is enabled in your campaign.
Google’s location targeting guidance says users must still meet campaign-level geographic criteria. The ad group’s interest setting adds a condition; it does not replace the campaign’s coverage. You do not need to enable AI Max to carry out the basic location audit.
Read the reports before excluding more places
A map of selected targets tells you the configuration. It does not, by itself, explain the traffic you have paid for.
Google distinguishes between the Targeted locations view and the Matched locations view. The latter can reflect physical locations or locations of interest, so a town appearing there is not necessarily the searcher’s physical whereabouts. Google also explains unspecified areas and why figures below country level may not add up to campaign totals in its geographic performance reporting guidance.
Review location reports alongside actual enquiry outcomes. Useful questions include:
- Where are we spending money without receiving suitable enquiries?
- Which enquiries were rejected specifically because of the job’s location?
- Are distant customers buying something we can fulfil locally?
- Is a pattern recurring, or are we reacting to one unusual enquiry?
Ask the sales team to record the requested service postcode and a clear rejection reason where relevant. “Outside installation coverage” tells you more than a generic “poor lead”. Keep the review focused on the information needed to decide whether the business can fulfil the request.
Our guide to conversion reporting from leads to sales explains how to distinguish an enquiry from a qualified opportunity. Use that distinction here: a location producing fewer enquiries may still produce more worthwhile work.
Add exclusions carefully
Exclusions are useful when you target a broader area but cannot serve a specific part of it. Google says exclusions take priority over inclusions: excluding a larger region can block a smaller location you have explicitly targeted within it. Its location exclusion guidance explains the conflict and the setup process.
For each proposed exclusion, write down the operational reason and the enquiries or coverage rule supporting it. Then review the excluded area against all locations you want to retain.
Avoid building an expanding blacklist from every unusual report row. First decide whether the campaign’s audience rule is wrong, its target area is too broad, or the customer is asking for work somewhere different from where they searched. Those problems need different responses.
Google’s advanced options guidance also describes exclusions as presence-based. They should not be treated as a universal block on every search expressing interest in that place.
Make your coverage clear before someone enquires
Advertising controls and customer information should support the same service promise. Check that the landing page describes the areas you genuinely cover and explains any important delivery or installation limits.
Keep the explanation specific enough to help someone decide. “Local installation available in these areas” followed by accurate coverage is more useful than a vague claim to serve everyone. If an exception depends on the project, tell people how to check it.
Review where your Google Ads clicks should land if customers currently arrive on a homepage that says little about the advertised service.
Search relevance deserves its own check too. Our guide to search terms and negative keywords covers unsuitable searches. Decide separately whether a problem concerns what someone wants or where the work needs to happen.
Judge the change by work you can fulfil
Note the change date and compare equivalent periods, allowing enquiries enough time to qualify. For a business with few leads, a handful of days may tell you very little.
Review spend, suitable enquiries, location-related rejection reasons and resulting opportunities together. Fewer clicks alone do not establish an improvement. Nor does a higher enquiry count help if the team cannot fulfil the requests.
If suitable demand falls, revisit the original business rule before tightening coverage further. You may have removed customers who search from elsewhere but need your service inside the area.
If you want help connecting campaign coverage with enquiry quality, talk to BuzzBoost. Bring your actual service areas, recent rejection reasons and current campaign setup. That gives us a practical starting point for a focused review.
Featured image: AI-generated editorial artwork, not a photograph of a real BuzzBoost office, client or result.
