Google Ads for Local Businesses: Location Targeting Guide

For a local business, whether the Google Ads budget reaches the right people depends largely on three settings: the location option that decides who sees the ad, the call asset that lets customers call straight from the ad and the location asset that shows your address. Add ad scheduling and local negative keywords, and your ads are shown to people in the area you serve who can actually reach you. In this article we go through these settings in order for businesses that serve a specific area, such as hair salons, clinics, car repair shops, restaurants or tradespeople.

Location targeting: city, district or radius?

In Google Ads you can choose where the ad is shown by regions such as country, city or district, or by a radius around your business. For a local business, the right choice is where your customers actually come from. Targeting a whole city for a neighbourhood hair salon means showing ads to people who will never visit. A business that offers home service should only select the districts it can reach. If areas you do not serve fall inside the target, you can remove them separately with location exclusions. Looking at which neighbourhoods your customers came from over the last few months is a good starting point before you draw the target.

Presence or interest? Always check the default setting

The most overlooked setting in location targeting is the advanced location options. According to Google's help page, the default and recommended option, "Presence or interest", shows ads to people who are in or regularly in your targeted locations, as well as people who have shown interest in them. The "Presence" option shows ads only to people who are in or regularly in your targeted locations. The details are on Google's advanced location options page.

For businesses where the customer comes in for the service, such as a hair salon, clinic or car repair shop, the "Presence" option is often a better fit, because someone who lives in another city and is merely interested in yours is probably not your customer. For businesses that serve visitors from elsewhere, such as hotels, tours or wedding venues, the default option can make sense. Whichever you choose, check the campaign's location report regularly to see where ads were actually shown.

Call asset: a phone call straight from the ad

For local businesses, a large share of customers call first. A call asset adds your phone number to the ad; according to Google, a clickable call button is shown under the ad on devices that can make calls. You can schedule the number to appear only during the hours when you can answer the phone. When you turn on call reporting, you can also count calls from ads as conversions; Google notes this is only available on the Search Network. Source: Google's call assets page.

Location asset: address, map and distance

A location asset adds your business information to the ad. According to Google, it can show the store address, a map to the location or the approximate distance; the location details page that opens from a Search ad also includes information such as hours, phone number, photos and directions. The information can come from your Google Business Profile, and Google also offers linking locations from Google Maps for businesses that cannot use a profile. Source: Google's location assets page. If the address, phone number and hours in your profile are out of date, the ad shows wrong information too. We explained how to tidy up your profile in our local SEO guide.

Ad scheduling: do not show ads while you are closed

For a business where customers call or walk in, clicks that arrive while you are closed often go nowhere. Ad scheduling lets you decide on which days and at which hours ads are shown. Start with your opening hours; after a few weeks, look at the hour and day report to see which time slots bring results. In some businesses, calls made in the evening turn into the next day's appointments, so make the decision from the report, not from assumptions.

Local negative keywords

One of the biggest budget drains in a local campaign is searches about places you do not serve and intentions that do not fit you. Other city and district names, "free", "job vacancy", "course" or "how to" phrases can fall into this group. Adding these as negative keywords helps the ad appear only on searches with buying intent. Review the search terms report regularly to see which words need adding. We explained our method in detail in our negative keyword strategy article.

Put local information at the front of your ad copy

In a local search, the customer is looking for a business that is close by and easy to reach. Writing the district or neighbourhood you serve, your opening hours and your appointment or service options clearly in headlines and descriptions answers that expectation directly. A concrete phrase such as "same-day service in Kadıköy" works better than a generic one like "quality service", but only write what you really offer. The page the ad leads to should show the same information, address and phone number; if what the ad promises and what the page shows do not match, the visitor leaves. We covered headline and description structure in detail in our RSA writing guide.

Which campaign type should you start with?

For local service businesses, a Search campaign is the type that gives you the clearest control over which searches you appear on and how much you pay. Showing up when a customer searches "dentist near me" or "district name + auto electrician" is the main goal of most local businesses. More automated campaign types can be considered separately once enough conversion data has built up. We explained the differences between types in our Google Ads campaign types article.

How should you measure results?

For a local business, success is measured not by clicks but by calls, direction requests, forms and appointments. Before launching the campaign, make sure these actions are counted as conversions; otherwise Google's bidding system cannot learn what works. Look at call duration too; very short calls often mean a wrong number or a request that does not fit you, and they should not be counted the same as genuine customer calls. At the end of the month, check which searches, hours and areas brought results, and update the location, schedule and negative keyword list accordingly.

A short checklist

Before launching your campaign, check the following: does the location target match your real service area, was the advanced location option chosen deliberately, is the call asset scheduled to your opening hours, is the location asset linked to an up-to-date business profile, have ad scheduling and local negative keywords been added, and are calls and forms counted as conversions? All of these settings can be checked in a few minutes, but they decide where the budget goes. If you would like to review your own account together, you can reach us from our Google Ads page.