How to: Radius Targeting

Let’s say you’re a luxury sports car dealership. You’ve defined your business’s target audience to the following persona: male, middle-aged to older, high income, c-level/executive. It’s fair to say that members of your target audience could be members of country clubs, or they dine or look for entertainment in particular areas of the city.

What if you could serve them advertisements while they’re there or shortly after? On top of that, the ads could be based off of the persona and therefore be very compelling. That would be a powerful opportunity, right?!

Enter radius targeting.

What is Radius Targeting?

Radius targeting is a location targeting tactic that allows you to target a radius around an address, zip code, or even a specific place. Your ads will be served to people browsing the web within the set radius or targeted location.

Radius targeting paired with other targeting elements can help you to directly communicate with a prospective customer. Other targeting elements include demographics, job titles, income, particular devices, you can set your ads to run on a schedule at the most opportune times of day, and more.

Radius Targeting Examples

Example 1: Luxury Cars

Let’s return to the example from the introduction. You’re a luxury car dealership looking to sell to a middle-aged, male, C-level executive.

Set a 5 miles radius around a particular country club or two to target folks living on the course, or who use their facilities. Also, radius target that certain area of the city where the persona is likely to go out.

Then, you can add another level to the campaign to nurture the lead if they don’t take action right away. Create a remarketing ad so anyone who does come to the site will see a display ad the next time they’re browsing, and keep the car’s top of mind, increasing the likelihood of purchase.

Example 2: Service Industry

Let’s say you clean ducts or fix furnaces. You’re going to people’s homes or commercial buildings. That involves driving, and the further you drive, the more gas and time you’ll use, which can shrink profitability. You’ve found that you’re comfortable driving within a 20-mile radius of your company office.

You can setup radius targeting to ensure you’re only appearing in ads for folks in the area of where you want to drive. This can save you money on wasted click costs for folks out of your desired area and allow you to focus all digital marketing advertising dollars in areas you would service.

Configuring Radius Targeting

All platforms will slightly vary, but when setting up a campaign you should be prompted to set up targets.  If your campaign is already setup, you’ll just go to settings/locations, to add or make adjustments to your existing targeting. We’ll walk through that below.

Google Ads

1. Login to your Google Ads account.
2. Click “Locations” in the left-hand side sub-navigation.
3. Click the blue pencil.
4. Select your campaign.
5. Select radius.
6. Select # of miles.
7. Enter place name, address, zip code, state, etc.
8. Click Target/

Bing Ads

1. Login to your Bing Ads account.
2. Click Settings.
3. Click Locations.
4. Click Add Locations.
5. Select campaign.
6. Type in the state, zip, place, etc.

Facebook

1. Login to Facebook Business Manager.
2. Select your ad account.
3. Click a campaign you want to edit.
4. Click “Edit” on the ad set you want to edit.
5. Scroll down to Audience Location.
6. Pick City, State or Address and select miles radius from 1-50.
7. Click Continue.

There is an outstanding value that can come from a narrowly targeted campaign. Radius targeting hones in on a target and allows you to supply very relevant ads that will have higher CTR, and likelihood of conversion.

Consider setting up a radius targeting campaign to boost your business leads and revenue!