Radius targeting shows your ads only to people within a set distance of a point you choose, like your storefront or service area center. Use it when your customers act locally: walking into a shop, scheduling a delivery, or booking a service call. If your business depends on people being physically near you to buy, radius targeting should be one of the first settings you configure, not an afterthought.
TL;DR:
- Choose presence only for local service campaigns; presence or interest can include distant searchers, inflating impressions without producing nearby customers.
- Start with the distance you can serve, then use conversion data to adjust it; radii under one mile may serve inconsistently in low density areas.
- Compare one campaign with bid adjustments against separate distance band campaigns over four weeks; separate campaigns provide independent bids and clearer reporting as budgets grow.
- Treat distance reports as directional because conversions may reflect a user's area of interest, then group results into bands and verify booked jobs in your CRM.
- Avoid location history tied to sensitive places, and require suppliers to document consumer consent before using third party audience lists.
Table of Contents
- What radius targeting is and where it fits in your location strategy
- Step-by-step: setting up a radius target in Google Ads
- Optimization best practices for radius size, bids, and messaging
- Measuring performance and interpreting distance reports
- Privacy and consent: what the FTC signals mean for your campaigns
- Our view on running radius campaigns for home service businesses
- How we help you run and scale radius-targeted campaigns
- FAQ
- Sources
What radius targeting is and where it fits in your location strategy
Radius targeting, sometimes called proximity targeting, draws a circle around an address, ZIP code, or set of coordinates and shows ads only to people inside that circle. It differs from city, region, or ZIP code targeting, which uses fixed administrative boundaries instead of a distance you control. A plumber covering a 15-mile service area gets far more precision from a radius than from targeting an entire metro area that includes neighborhoods they will never drive to.
Radius targeting also interacts with a setting Google Ads calls presence or interest. "Presence" limits your ads to people physically in or regularly in your radius, while "presence or interest" expands reach to people searching about that area from elsewhere. For a local service business, presence alone usually makes more sense since someone browsing your area from across the country rarely becomes a booked job.
Common situations where radius targeting is the right first choice:
- A retail store wants to drive foot traffic from nearby neighborhoods.
- A restaurant or delivery business needs to match ads to its actual delivery zone.
- A home service company (HVAC, plumbing, roofing) wants leads only within a drivable service radius.
- A local event or pop-up needs a short burst of hyper-local awareness.
If your buyers come from anywhere, radius targeting adds little value. If they come from nearby, it is often the single highest-leverage setting in your account.
Step-by-step: setting up a radius target in Google Ads
Setting a radius in Google Ads takes a few minutes once you know the path. Here is the exact sequence, based on current Google Ads Help documentation:
- Open your campaign and go to the Locations section in the left-hand menu.
- Click Edit locations, then select Advanced search.
- Choose the Radius option from the targeting menu.
- Enter the center point, either a full address or coordinates, and the distance you want to target.
- Review the shaded area on the map before saving to confirm it matches your actual coverage.
- Save the radius and repeat for additional locations if you serve more than one area.
Pro Tip: Always double-check the map preview before saving. A typo in the address field can silently shift your entire radius to the wrong side of town.
A few pitfalls trip up SMB advertisers more than any others. Setting the center point at a business's mailing address instead of its actual service hub throws off the whole radius. Overlapping radius targets across multiple campaigns can cause them to compete against each other in the auction. And mixing "presence" with "presence or interest" without understanding the difference often inflates impressions without adding real local buyers.
On minimum size: Google Ads enforces area and population thresholds, so a radius that is too small, often under a mile in low-density areas, may not serve consistently. Start with a conservative radius, confirm it delivers impressions, and tighten it only once you have performance data to justify it.
Radius targeting works across Search, Display, and most Performance Max local configurations, though some campaign types apply it slightly differently when location signals are layered with asset groups rather than set at the campaign level.
Optimization best practices for radius size, bids, and messaging
A good starting radius is usually the distance you are realistically willing to serve, not the distance you wish you could reach. For a roofer, that might be 25 miles. For a bakery, it might be 3. Once the campaign has run long enough to produce conversions, use distance-band data to tighten or widen the radius rather than guessing.
You have two structural choices: run a single campaign with bid adjustments by distance, or split distance bands into separate campaigns. Separate campaigns give you independent bid control and cleaner reporting, which matters more as your budget grows. A single campaign with layered bid adjustments is simpler to manage for a smaller account.
Messaging should shift with distance. Someone two miles away responds to "serving your neighborhood," while someone at the edge of your radius needs reassurance that you actually cover their area at all.
- Use explicit distance or neighborhood names in copy for outer-radius audiences.
- Keep messaging broader and brand-focused for the inner radius, where trust is already higher.
- Layer in remarketing and existing customer lists to avoid paying full price to re-acquire people you already reached.
- Exclude ZIP codes or areas with a history of no-shows or unqualified leads to cut wasted spend.
Pro Tip: Build a simple A/B test comparing one broad-radius campaign against two or three distance-banded campaigns over a four-week window before committing budget long term.
Distance-based bidding tends to perform best when structured as separate campaigns or ad groups per band, since independent bid control makes it easier to see which distances convert efficiently and which only generate clicks. Watch cost per acquisition and conversion rate by distance band as your primary KPIs, and resist changing bids until each band has enough volume to be meaningful.
Measuring performance and interpreting distance reports
Google Ads reports distance performance through its geographic and distance reports, found under the Locations tab in campaign reporting. These reports show how far converting users were from your targeted location at the time of their search or click.
Here is the catch: the distance shown often reflects a user's location of interest, not their physical location at that moment. Someone searching "plumber near downtown" from their office across town may show up as a conversion at a distance that looks larger than your configured radius, even though your radius targeting still functioned correctly.
- Treat individual distance data points as directional signals, not exact measurements.
- Group conversions into distance bands (0 to 5 miles, 5 to 10, and so on) rather than reacting to single outliers.
- Wait until each distance band has a reasonable number of conversions before adjusting bids, since small sample sizes produce unreliable swings.
- Cross-reference distance reports with your CRM data when possible to confirm that reported conversions match real booked jobs.
Used this way, distance reports become a tool for tightening your targeting over time instead of a source of confusion.
Privacy and consent: what the FTC signals mean for your campaigns
Recent FTC enforcement actions against data brokers have targeted the sale of sensitive location data, including visits to medical facilities and places of worship. The takeaway for advertisers is straightforward: avoid building or buying audiences based on sensitive-location visits, and never assume a third-party data provider has obtained proper consumer consent just because the data is for sale.
Practical safeguards worth building into your process:
- Exclude sensitive location categories (healthcare, religious, legal) from any custom audience based on location history.
- Ask third-party data suppliers for documented proof of consumer consent before using their lists.
- Keep records of supplier agreements and include contract language granting audit rights and deletion obligations.
- Review your audience sources periodically rather than treating a vendor relationship as a one-time vetting event.
Pro Tip: If a data supplier cannot clearly explain how consent was collected, treat that as a reason to skip the list entirely rather than a detail to sort out later.
These steps cost little to implement and protect you from the kind of enforcement risk that has already hit multiple data brokers.
Our view on running radius campaigns for home service businesses
We prioritize distance-banded testing because home service leads behave differently depending on how far they sit from the shop. A five-mile lead and a twenty-mile lead rarely convert at the same rate or cost, and treating them identically hides which radius is actually profitable.
Whether to manage this in-house depends on resources: if you have someone who can check distance reports weekly and adjust bids accordingly, DIY works. If your team is stretched across scheduling, dispatch, and sales, that attention usually slips.
Three experiments worth running on any new radius campaign: a two-week test of inner versus outer radius messaging, a four-week comparison of single-campaign bid adjustments against distance-banded campaigns, and a CRM-linked review tying reported conversions back to actual booked jobs. Our HVAC Google Ads for Owners playbook walks through a similar CRM-linkage process in more depth.
— Everson Gorski
How we help you run and scale radius-targeted campaigns
We manage Google Ads Management for home service businesses with radius targeting built around actual service areas, not guesswork, and we pair that with CRM Integration and on-premise AI dispatch so leads from each distance band get scored and routed to booked jobs instead of sitting in an inbox.
Because our AI infrastructure runs on servers managed to keep client data proprietary, information from distance reports and CRM activity stays secure, which matters when you are trying to avoid the kind of third-party data risk the FTC has flagged. If your service area spans multiple distance bands and you want someone watching conversion density weekly instead of quarterly, our pricing page outlines plans from Foundation through Enterprise, or you can review our full service offerings to see what fits your current setup.
For operators specifically in HVAC and similar trades looking for hands-on operational support beyond ad management, REBUILDING THE TRADES covers turning local service ads into booked jobs from the operations side.
FAQ
What is the minimum radius size Google Ads allows?
Google Ads enforces area and population thresholds, so a radius that is too small, particularly in low-density areas, may not serve ads consistently. Google Ads Help recommends starting with a conservative radius and narrowing it once you have performance data.
How is radius targeting different from presence or interest targeting?
Radius targeting defines the geographic circle your ads can appear in, while presence or interest determines whether Google shows ads to people physically in that circle or also to people merely searching about it. For local service businesses, presence-only targeting usually produces more relevant leads.
Why does my distance report show conversions outside my radius?
Distance reports can reflect a user's location of interest rather than their exact physical position at the time of the click. Google Ads documentation notes this discrepancy, which is why distance bands are more reliable than single data points for decision making.
Can I use third-party location data for radius audiences safely?
You can, but only if the supplier can document clear consumer consent for advertising use. Recent FTC enforcement actions against data brokers show that selling location data without proper consent carries real regulatory risk.
Which campaign types support radius targeting?
Radius targeting works across Search, Display, and most Performance Max local setups, though Performance Max applies location signals somewhat differently through asset groups. Our Performance Max local playbook walks through structuring these campaigns for local reach.