Are your ads showing in the wrong town?

If you only serve one area, every click from outside it is money gone. It happens more than you would think, and a quick check usually shows it.

Check your location option

Open the campaign, go to Settings, then Locations, then Location options. Google offers two choices:

• Presence or interest: people in, regularly in, or who have shown interest in your locations. This is the default.
• Presence: people in or regularly in your locations.

For a local service business, Presence is usually the safer choice. Someone in another city researching your town may never become a customer.

See where clicks really came from

Under Insights and reports, the location report shows where people actually were when they saw or clicked your ads. Sort by cost. Anything spending money outside your area is worth a closer look.

Read the search terms

The search terms report shows what people typed. Look for other town and city names. If someone searched for a service in a city you do not cover, add that city as a negative keyword so the ad stops showing for it.

Match the ad to the place

If you run separate campaigns for different areas, make sure each campaign's ads and landing pages name the right place. An ad for one city running in another costs you twice: wasted clicks, and weaker ad relevance, which can push up what you pay for every click.