Overview of Geotargeting

Definition & Importance

It leverages data such as IP addresses, GPS coordinates, or place check-ins to pinpoint where an audience is and serve location-relevant messaging. For local businesses, this means ads reach people nearby or in specific regions who are more likely to visit or convert. It is a powerful way to avoid wasting ad spend on users outside the service area and ensure the budget focuses on likely customers. In fact, location-based targeting is critical in today’s mobile-driven market. Research indicates that 76% of people who search for something “near me” on a smartphone visit a related business within a day, and 28% of those searches result in a purchase. Additionally, 61% of local searches lead to a direct conversion, and up to 88% of local searches result in a call or visit to a store within 24 hours. These statistics underscore that geotargeting drives highly actionable traffic, reaching users at the moment of intent and guiding them straight to local businesses.

Benefits for Local Businesses

By honing in on relevant geographic areas, local businesses can significantly improve ad performance and return on investment (ROI). Geotargeting ensures ads are only shown in areas where the business operates or delivers, leading to higher relevance. For example, a restaurant can advertise lunch specials within a five-mile radius to capture nearby patrons, or a boutique could target only its city to draw foot traffic. This increases click-through and conversion rates while minimizing “wasted” clicks from faraway users who cannot become customers. Geotargeting also enables the personalization of ad copy (e.g., “Join us tonight in Downtown Chicago!”), which resonates more with local audiences. Overall, it helps local businesses stay competitive against larger brands by focusing on the community level and maximizing marketing spend by concentrating on the audience most likely to visit in person.

Platform-Specific Geotargeting Features

Facebook Ads

Facebook (and Instagram via Meta Ads) offers robust geotargeting tools ideal for local outreach. Advertisers can target users by location in several ways:

Location Targeting & Radius Targeting

Facebook allows targeting by countries, states/regions, cities, postal codes, or even specific addresses. Advertisers can drop a pin on a map and set a radius (from a minimum of one mile up to 50 miles) around that point to reach everyone within that area. This “radius targeting” (essentially Facebook’s geofencing) is excellent for hyper-local campaigns. For example, a store can serve ads to people within two miles. Facebook’s location targeting is not limited to residents; advertisers can refine the audience by selecting from four presence options: “Everyone in this location,” “People who live in this location,” “People recently in this location,” or “People traveling in this location.” This means businesses can reach locals, tourists, or commuters. For instance, a museum might target “people currently in this location” during a city festival to attract nearby tourists. Facebook also supports excluding areas within the radius (by dropping an “exclude” pin) to refine the shape of the targeted zone.

Location-Based Custom Audiences

Beyond simple radius targeting, Facebook allows the creation of custom audiences using location data. This advanced feature enables businesses to retarget users who have recently visited specific locations—such as a store, a competitor’s store, or an event venue. By geofencing a location and capturing an audience (with user consent) who was present, advertisers can later serve follow-up ads to that highly relevant group.

Store Traffic Objective

Facebook Ads provides a specific campaign objective called “Store Traffic” (formerly “Local Awareness”), designed to drive foot traffic to physical business locations. This objective helps businesses run ads optimized to reach people near their business and even use ad formats that show a map with directions to the store. Facebook recommends the Store Traffic objective for advertisers with brick-and-mortar locations when using micro-targeted local ads.

Facebook’s geotargeting can be extremely granular and effective. Advertisers can target a single zip code or a cluster of neighborhoods with tailored messages. Many small businesses leverage these tools to only pay for ads shown within their service area or close vicinity.

Google Ads

Google Ads (formerly AdWords) offers geotargeting features crucial for local search marketing. These include:

Geo-Modifiers & Location Keywords

One straightforward way to geotarget in Google is through keywords themselves. Advertisers often include geo-modifiers in their search keywords, adding location terms to capture local intent searches. For example, instead of bidding on “plumber,” a local business might bid on “plumber in Chicago” or “Chicago plumber.” Google reports that “near me” searches have skyrocketed, so including phrases like “near me” or city/neighborhood names in keywords and ad copy can be very effective.

Location Targeting & Proximity Targeting

In Google Ads campaign settings, businesses can specify the geographic areas where ads should appear. Google also allows Radius Targeting (Proximity Targeting), where a radius around a point on the map can be defined to target users.

Local Search Ads (Google Maps Ads)

Google offers a specialized ad format for local businesses often referred to as Local Search Ads—these appear within Google Maps results and local finder results. When users search for queries like “coffee shops near me,” local search ads can display businesses as promoted listings. These ads use Google Business Profile information (address, hours, reviews) and show up with a purple “Ad” label on Maps.

Additionally, Google Ads provides location bid adjustments—businesses can increase or decrease bids for specific locations based on performance data.

LinkedIn Ads

LinkedIn, as a professional networking platform, has distinct geotargeting options that benefit B2B and local hiring campaigns:

Location Targeting (Mandatory)

Every LinkedIn Ads campaign requires a location selection. Advertisers can target by countries, states/provinces, cities, and (in some cases) metro areas or postal codes. Unlike Facebook, LinkedIn does not support radius targeting around a pin; predefined geographic units must be selected.

Company Location & Industry Targeting

LinkedIn allows advertisers to target based on a user’s company attributes, which can indirectly support geo-segmentation.

Local Talent and Event Targeting

Local businesses use LinkedIn geotargeting to recruit or promote events.

Conclusion

Geotargeting is an indispensable strategy for local businesses in the digital advertising era. By using the geotargeting features of Facebook, Google, and LinkedIn Ads—and employing techniques such as geofencing, audience layering, and mobile optimization—local marketers can dramatically improve outreach and conversion rates. The key is to remain agile, use data to inform strategies, and stay updated on platform changes. With consumer behavior increasingly centered on real-time, location-based searches, geotargeting will continue to drive local business success.