Location Targeting & Radius

Last updated: September 22, 2026

1. Executive Summary

Google Ads location targeting is one of the highest-leverage controls in any local or regional account. Getting it wrong means paying for clicks from users you can never convert; getting it right concentrates budget where it produces revenue. The five principles every senior practitioner should internalize before touching a location setting are:

• Change the default. Google’s default advanced location option is Presence or interest, which serves ads to people who merely research or plan to visit your area. For any business that can only serve customers physically present in its territory — plumbers, dentists, HVAC contractors, personal injury attorneys, retail stores — switch to Presence immediately.^[1]
• Target the smallest serviceable geography first, then expand with data. Start with a radius or location set that matches your real service boundary. Expanding is easy; recovering wasted spend is not.^[2]
• Exclusions are not optional. Radius targeting ignores administrative borders. A circle drawn around a Denver HVAC company will spill into suburbs you do not serve. Add explicit negative locations on day one and refine them weekly.^[2]
• Separate the Geographic report from the User Location report. These two reports answer different questions. Running only one of them will leave wasted spend invisible.^[3]
• Earn bid adjustments with data, not intuition. Geographic bid modifiers should follow at least 30 conversions per zone before you apply them. Applying them earlier amplifies noise, not signal.^[4]

2. Benchmarks and Numbers at a Glance

Metric	Typical range or threshold	Applies when	Source
Minimum permitted targeting radius	1 km (0.62 miles)	Any campaign using radius targeting in Google Ads; no radius below this value is supported in the UI or API	[5]
Default radius pre-populated by Google UI	20 miles	Vendor claim; observed when adding a radius target in the Google Ads interface during 2026 walkthroughs	[6]
Recommended starting radius for most local service businesses	5 miles (single practitioner guidance) or 3–10 miles (range)	Vendor claim; applies to storefronts and home-service businesses before conversion data is available	[4][6]
Recommended starting radius in km	5–10 km	Vendor claim; same use case as above for advertisers working in metric units	[6]
Minimum conversions before applying a geographic bid adjustment	30 conversions per location zone	Practitioner guideline; applies before adjusting bids up or down based on location performance	[4]
Inner-ring bid adjustment (closest zone, highest intent)	+75%	Vendor claim; concentric-zone bid strategy for service businesses where proximity correlates with conversion rate	[4]
Middle-ring bid adjustment	+50%	Vendor claim; second concentric zone, moderate distance from business address	[4]
Outer-ring bid adjustment	0% (no modifier)	Vendor claim; baseline zone where conversion performance is average	[4]
Extended outer-ring bid adjustment	−25%	Vendor claim; furthest serviceable zone where leads are harder to close or require longer travel time	[4]
Clicks from outside targeted service area (pre-fix)	23% of total clicks	Study finding from a B2B SaaS account spending $145,000; measured before location exclusions were applied and targeting was narrowed to 12 US metro areas	[7]
Location codes excluded to fix out-of-area traffic	47 location codes removed; targeting narrowed to 12 metro areas	Study finding from same $145,000 B2B SaaS account; illustrates scale of exclusion work required	[7]
Location exclusion behavior (current policy)	Exclusions apply on a Presence basis only — they exclude people physically in the area, not people merely interested in it	Google Ads current policy as of 2026; applies to all campaign types using location exclusions	[1]

3. Presence vs. Presence or Interest and the Default

Every Google Ads campaign carries an advanced location option that controls who qualifies as being “in” your target geography. Understanding this setting is the single most important location-targeting decision you will make, because Google’s default is almost never the right choice for a local or service-area advertiser.

What each option means

Presence or interest (Google’s default and recommended setting) serves ads to three groups: people physically in your targeted location right now, people who regularly travel to or through your targeted location, and people who have shown interest in your targeted location through their search behavior, even if they are physically located elsewhere.^[8][1][9]

Presence serves ads only to people who are physically in or regularly present in your targeted location. It excludes the “interest” segment entirely.^[10][1]

Why the default is problematic for most local advertisers

Google explicitly describes Presence or interest as the broader option and Presence as the narrower one in its API documentation.^[10] For a plumber targeting the Phoenix metro area, the default setting will serve ads to a homeowner in Chicago who recently searched “Phoenix plumber” — perhaps because they are planning a move or researching a rental property. That click costs real money and has zero conversion probability. For a hotel in Phoenix targeting travelers planning a visit, the same click is commercially valid. The setting exists for a reason; the problem is that Google defaults every campaign to it regardless of business type.

Decision rule by use case

Business type	Correct setting	Reason
Plumber, HVAC, electrician, roofer	Presence	Customer must be physically in the service area to receive service
Dentist, urgent care, physical therapy	Presence	Patient must be local; interest-based matching produces unserviceable leads
Personal injury or family law attorney	Presence	Jurisdiction is geographically constrained; out-of-state clicks have no value
Retail storefront	Presence	Foot traffic is the conversion goal; remote interest has no path to purchase
Hotel, resort, vacation rental	Presence or interest	Guests travel to the property; people planning a visit are the target audience
Tourism board, destination event	Presence or interest	Awareness and planning intent outside the market has direct commercial value
National ecommerce shipping to all states	Either (targeting by state or DMA, not as a local control)	Geographic interest is irrelevant when the product ships anywhere

Outside the US, the same Presence / Presence or interest distinction applies in all markets where the setting is available, but the terminology may differ slightly in localized versions of the Google Ads interface.

4. Choosing the Right Location Option by Business Type

Location targeting is not a single lever — it is a combination of the targeting unit (radius, city, ZIP, DMA, state), the presence/interest setting, and any exclusions layered on top. The right combination depends on how the business actually acquires and serves customers.

Service-area businesses (home services, mobile providers)

A service-area business dispatches technicians from a home base or depot. The correct targeting unit is almost always a radius centered on the dispatch address, or a set of ZIP codes that matches the actual dispatch territory. Use Presence. Exclude any ZIP codes or cities inside the radius that you do not serve — particularly jurisdictions on the other side of a major highway, river, or county line that adds 30+ minutes of drive time.^[2]

Brick-and-mortar retail and professional services

Customers drive to your location. Use a radius centered on your address, set to a distance that reflects realistic drive time rather than a theoretical circle. In dense urban markets, 3–5 miles may be sufficient. In suburban or rural markets, 10–20 miles may be appropriate. Use Presence.^[4]

Healthcare and sensitive verticals

Google specifically identifies sensitive verticals as cases where Presence is appropriate over Presence or interest.^[11][1] In healthcare, serving ads to someone in another state who shows interest in your clinic can also create compliance exposure under HIPAA and state privacy laws. Use Presence and apply tight radius or ZIP-code targeting.

Legal services

Bar admission is state-specific in the US. A family law firm licensed in Georgia cannot represent a client in Tennessee. Use Presence, target at the state level or by the firm’s actual service counties, and exclude all adjacent states by adding them as negative locations.^[10]

Destination and travel businesses

Hotels, resorts, wedding venues, and event spaces benefit from Presence or interest because their customers come from outside the location. A Sedona, AZ resort should target users in major feeder markets (Phoenix, Los Angeles, Dallas) who show interest in Sedona, not just locals.^[10][11]

Franchise and multi-location brands

Each location should target its own trade area using either a feed-based radius strategy or separate campaigns. The corporate campaign should not use a national target with Presence or interest, because that pulls budget toward densely populated areas regardless of whether a franchise unit is nearby. See Section 10 for the full multi-location framework.^[11][12]

5. Radius vs. Specific Locations

Choosing between a radius and a named location (city, ZIP code, county, DMA, state) is a structural decision that affects targeting precision, reporting clarity, bid control, and how well the targeting matches your real service geography.

When to use radius targeting

Radius targeting works best when your market truly radiates outward from a point — a storefront, a dispatch address, or a clinic — and demand falls off roughly proportionally with distance. It handles irregular or oddly shaped service territories less well, because a circle does not respect rivers, highways, county lines, or neighborhood boundaries.^[2][13][14]

Google Ads supports radius targeting around a specific address or a coordinate. The minimum permitted radius is 1 km (0.62 miles).^[5] The Google Ads UI pre-populates a default of 20 miles when you add a radius target, which is almost always too large for a single-location local business and should be manually adjusted.^[6]

When to use specific locations

Named locations (ZIP codes, cities, counties, DMAs, states) work best when your service territory is defined by boundaries rather than distance: a law firm licensed statewide, an ecommerce retailer that ships only to certain states, or a franchise unit whose territory agreement specifies a list of ZIP codes. Named locations also produce cleaner reporting, because each row in the geographic report maps directly to a recognizable geography rather than “within X miles of address.”^[14][1][12]

Combining both approaches

It is valid to combine a radius with named exclusions. For example, a Dallas plumbing company might use a 15-mile radius around its dispatch address, then add Fort Worth (a named city) as a negative location because that geography is served by a separate franchisee. This gives the simplicity of a radius with the precision of administrative exclusions.^[2][15]

Radius guidance by business type

Business type	Recommended starting radius	Notes
Urban storefront (dense city)	3–5 miles	High population density means 3 miles can cover 500,000+ residents; larger radii dilute intent
Suburban storefront or clinic	5–10 miles	Typical commute/drive radius in US suburban markets[6]
Home service (plumber, HVAC, electrician)	5–15 miles depending on dispatch cost	Start at 5 miles per practitioner guidance[4]; expand only to limit of profitable dispatch radius
Rural service provider or dealership	20–40 miles	Low population density requires larger radius to reach sufficient volume
Multi-location chain (feed-based)	Consistent radius around each location in feed	Use Location Groups in Google Ads Editor for consistent application[12]

6. Location Exclusions

Location exclusions are among the most underused controls in Google Ads. Most practitioners add target locations and stop; the exclusions layer is left empty. This is a significant error in any account where the target radius or named geography extends into areas you cannot or do not serve.

What exclusions do (and what they do not do)

As of current Google Ads policy, location exclusions operate on a Presence basis: they exclude people physically in the excluded area. They do not exclude people who are merely interested in the excluded area.^[1][12] This means that if you add Dallas as a negative location, a user physically in Dallas will not see your ad, but a user in Austin who is searching for services in Dallas may still see it unless you have also set your inclusion targeting to Presence. This is why the Presence setting and location exclusions must work together — neither alone is sufficient.

When to add exclusions on day one

You do not need conversion data to add obvious structural exclusions. On day one, add exclusions for:

• States or countries you are not licensed to operate in (law firms, healthcare, financial services)
• Cities or ZIP codes you have specifically decided not to serve
• Adjacent markets covered by a different franchisee, dealer, or company branch
• Areas your radius overlaps due to geography (a river, a mountain range, a county you do not dispatch to)^[2][15]

Data-driven exclusions after launch

After a campaign has been live for 30+ days, run the Geographic report sorted by cost. Any row with meaningful spend (greater than 1× your target CPA) and zero conversions is a candidate for exclusion. Apply the most specific exclusion you can: prefer a ZIP code over a city, prefer a city over a DMA, because broader exclusions can accidentally remove high-value areas adjacent to a problem area.^[4][3]

Scale of the exclusion problem

A 2026 audit of a B2B SaaS account spending $145,000 found that 23% of clicks were coming from locations the advertiser did not serve. The remediation required excluding 47 location codes and narrowing targeting to 12 US metro areas.^[7] That scale — 23% of a $145,000 budget representing approximately $33,350 in wasted spend — illustrates why exclusions deserve the same rigor as keyword negatives.

7. Geographic Bid Adjustments

Geographic bid adjustments let you increase or decrease your bids for specific locations relative to your campaign’s base bid. Used correctly, they amplify spend in your highest-converting zones and reduce waste in your lowest. Used prematurely or incorrectly, they amplify noise and destabilize automated bidding strategies.

When not to use bid adjustments

If you are running a Smart Bidding strategy (Target CPA, Target ROAS, Maximize Conversions, or Maximize Conversion Value), Google’s algorithm already adjusts bids by location in real time using its full signal set. Layering manual geographic bid adjustments on top of Smart Bidding is generally counterproductive — it constrains the algorithm’s ability to optimize and can prevent it from discovering high-value signals in locations you have artificially suppressed.^[2][16]

For Manual CPC or Enhanced CPC campaigns, geographic bid adjustments are a meaningful tool. The threshold for applying them is at least 30 conversions per location zone before changing bids, to avoid decisions driven by statistical noise.^[4]

Concentric zone strategy

One proven pattern for service businesses is to build concentric distance zones around the service address and assign different bid modifiers based on conversion rate or CPA by zone. The published example structure uses four zones:^[4]

Zone	Distance from address	Bid modifier	Rationale
Inner ring	Closest (e.g., 0–3 miles)	+75%	Highest proximity intent, shortest dispatch time, highest close rate
Middle ring	Mid-distance (e.g., 3–7 miles)	+50%	Strong intent, slightly longer dispatch
Outer ring	Far (e.g., 7–12 miles)	0% (baseline)	Average performance; no modifier applied
Extended outer ring	Maximum serviceable distance (e.g., 12–18 miles)	−25%	Lower conversion rate, higher dispatch cost; reduce spend without excluding

State and DMA-level adjustments

For regional or national campaigns with multiple state-level targets, apply bid adjustments at the state or DMA level based on actual CPA or ROAS data by geography. Sort the geographic report by CPA descending and apply positive adjustments to states performing 20%+ below your target CPA, and negative adjustments to states performing 20%+ above it. The 20% threshold is a practical buffer against statistical noise; tighter thresholds require higher conversion volumes to be reliable.^[2][17]

8. Location Reporting: Geographic vs. User Location

Google Ads provides two fundamentally different location reports, and treating them as interchangeable is one of the most common and costly analytical errors in local campaign management.

Geographic report (matched locations)

The Geographic report shows the locations that Google matched your ads to — the locations Google attributed each impression, click, or conversion to based on its targeting logic. This is the report most practitioners open by default. It tells you where Google thinks your ads were relevant, which may include locations inferred from search queries, browsing behavior, and user history, not just physical GPS data.^[14][9][10]

User Location report

The User Location report shows where the person who clicked was actually physically located or regularly located at the time of the click, based on device signals. This report answers a different question: not “where did Google match this to?” but “where was the human body when they clicked?”^[18][10] The two reports can and do diverge materially, particularly when Presence or interest is enabled — the Geographic report may show your target city while the User Location report shows a city 300 miles away.

Building the User Location report

As of 2026, the User Location view is most reliably accessed as a custom report built in Report Editor, segmented by the “User location” dimension rather than the “Matched location” dimension. This distinction is not always obvious in the default Locations UI tab, which can mix both views depending on how filters are applied.^[19][18]

Recommended reporting cadence

Report	Frequency	Primary action
Geographic (matched locations)	Weekly	Identify cost concentration, find zero-conversion locations, add exclusions
User Location	Monthly	Audit physical location leakage, verify Presence setting is working as expected
Both compared together	Monthly or after major setting changes	Identify gaps where matched ≠ physical; used to diagnose Presence or interest bleed-through

9. Avoiding Wasted Spend from Out-of-Area Traffic

Out-of-area traffic is the location-targeting equivalent of broad-match keyword waste: it is systematic, often invisible in default reporting views, and compounds over time if not actively managed. The combination of Presence or interest targeting, large radii, and absent exclusions creates the conditions for it. The remediation follows a specific sequence.

The four-layer defense against out-of-area waste

Layer 1 — Presence setting. Switch the campaign’s advanced location option from Presence or interest to Presence. This is the highest-leverage single action for local and service-area campaigns and eliminates the interest-based matching segment entirely.^[10][1][9]

Layer 2 — Structural exclusions on day one. Before the campaign spends a dollar, add negative locations for every jurisdiction you cannot serve: out-of-license states, competitor franchisee territories, unserviceable ZIP codes inside your radius.^[2][15]

Layer 3 — Data-driven exclusions after 30 days. Run the Geographic report sorted by cost. Any location with spend greater than 1× your target CPA and zero conversions should be excluded. Use the most specific geographic unit available — ZIP code before city, city before DMA.^[4][3]

Layer 4 — Monthly User Location audit. Run the User Location report monthly to find physical leakage not visible in matched-location reporting. This catches bleed-through that survives even after the Presence setting is enabled, particularly in accounts with broad match keywords or Smart Bidding that expands reach.^[18][10]

Ad copy geo-cues as a soft filter

Including the city or region name in ad headlines and descriptions creates a soft relevance filter: users who are not local may self-select out of clicking on an ad that says “Emergency Plumber — Denver” if they are in Colorado Springs. This does not replace targeting controls but reduces irrelevant clicks at the margin and improves Quality Score for local intent queries.^[15]

10. Local and Multi-Location Strategy

Managing location targeting for a business with 2, 20, or 200 locations requires a structural decision that shapes everything downstream: campaign architecture, budget allocation, bid strategy, and reporting. Making the wrong choice at this stage creates management debt that compounds as the account grows.

Decision framework: single campaign vs. separate campaigns

The core question is whether each location has meaningfully different performance, budget, or service-area characteristics. If yes, separate campaigns. If no, a unified campaign with location groups and exclusions can work.^[16][9]

Scenario	Recommended structure	Reason
2–5 locations with similar trade areas and similar CPAs	Single campaign, location groups feed, radius per location	Simpler management; consistent settings; feed-based radius applies automatically to all locations[12]
2–5 locations with materially different CPAs or budgets	Separate campaign per location	Prevents strong locations from absorbing budget that should go to others[16]
6–50 locations, franchise or chain model	Location groups feed with consistent radius, exclusions for overlap zones, bid adjustments by performance	Manual campaign-per-location setup does not scale; feed-based radius reduces ongoing maintenance[11][12]
50+ locations, corporate-managed	Location groups feed + automated bidding + geo bid adjustments only after 30 conversions per zone[4]	At this scale, manual per-location management is operationally impossible; automation must carry the weight

Feed-based radius targeting with Location Groups

Google Ads Editor supports a Location Groups feed that allows you to apply a single radius rule around every address in a linked Business Profile or location feed. This is the most efficient way to ensure that all 30 locations in a chain each target their own 5-mile trade area without manually creating 30 separate radius targets.^[11][12] Keep the feed clean: any location in the feed that is temporarily closed, under construction, or not yet accepting customers should be removed from the feed before it receives traffic.

Handling overlapping service areas

When two locations are close enough that their radii overlap, you have two options: keep non-overlapping radii (simplest), or allow overlap and use bid adjustments or exclusions to route traffic to the closer or higher-performing location. In practice, allowing overlap and adding the adjacent location’s core ZIP codes as negatives in each campaign is a reliable middle path.^[1][9]

11. Common Mistakes to Avoid

The following errors account for the majority of wasted location-targeting spend in Google Ads accounts. Each is preventable with correct initial setup or a routine audit.

Mistake 1: Leaving the default Presence or interest setting in place for local campaigns

This is the single most common and costly error. Google’s default serves ads to people who are interested in your location, not just physically present. For any business that requires the customer to be on-site, this setting wastes budget on users with no conversion path. Change it to Presence at campaign creation, not after the first wasted spend report.^[1][9]

Mistake 2: Using the UI default 20-mile radius without adjustment

Google pre-populates 20 miles when you add a radius target.^[6] For most urban and suburban businesses, this is far too large. A 20-mile radius centered on midtown Manhattan would cover parts of three states. Always set the radius to match your real service boundary, then adjust with data.^[4][6]

Mistake 3: Running no location exclusions

A radius or named-location target will almost always spill into areas you do not serve. Exclusions are not optional cleanup work — they are a core part of the targeting setup. The documented consequence of skipping them is 23% of clicks coming from outside the service area.^[7]

Mistake 4: Making exclusion decisions from the Geographic report alone

The Geographic (matched locations) report and the User Location report answer different questions. Using only the Geographic report will miss physical location leakage where Google matched the click to your target area but the user was physically elsewhere.^[3][10]

Mistake 5: Applying geographic bid adjustments before reaching 30 conversions per zone

Applying bid modifiers to zones with fewer than 30 conversions amplifies statistical noise, not real performance differences. The practical result is budget distortion in exchange for false precision. Wait for the threshold.^[4]

Mistake 6: Layering manual geographic bid adjustments on Smart Bidding

Smart Bidding already accounts for location signals in its per-auction bid calculation. Adding manual geographic bid adjustments constrains the algorithm unnecessarily and can reduce its ability to respond to real-time signals.^[2][16]

Mistake 7: Targeting the entire DMA for a single-location local business

DMA targeting is appropriate for media planning and national campaigns. A single-location dentist in suburban Dallas does not need to target the entire Dallas-Fort Worth DMA. DMA targeting for local businesses inflates impression share in areas with zero conversion potential, increases CPCs through unnecessary competition, and dilutes budget from the actual trade area.^[14][1]

Mistake 8: Not linking Google Business Profile to the campaign

A linked Business Profile enables location assets, improves local pack eligibility, and allows Google to use store visit data in conversion reporting. Without it, you lose measurement data and ad format options that are material to local campaign performance.^[10][16]

12. What Changed Recently (Last 30 Days)

The changes documented below reflect updates observed through September 2026. None of these shifts represent entirely new targeting capabilities; rather, they are setting-behavior clarifications, UI refinements, and documentation updates that materially affect how campaigns should be configured and audited today.^[16][1][20]

Location Exclusion Logic: Now Explicitly Presence-Based

Google’s current help documentation confirms that excluded locations apply only on a presence basis: when you add a negative location, it suppresses ads for users who are physically in or regularly in that area. Exclusions do not suppress ads for users who are merely interested in the excluded location.^[12][15] This is a meaningful asymmetry. If your campaign targeting is set to Presence or interest and you add a state as a negative location, a user in California who searches for a product in your excluded Nevada territory could still see your ad, because their interest—not their physical presence—triggered eligibility.

Immediate action: If your campaigns use Presence or interest targeting and you rely on location exclusions to block out-of-area traffic, you have a structural gap. Either switch to Presence targeting so inclusion and exclusion logic operate on the same basis, or accept that interest-based impressions from excluded areas may still occur and monitor the User Location report monthly to quantify the exposure.^[1][15]

Demand Gen and AI Max: Explicit Location-Intent Controls

Google is now surfacing locations of presence and locations of interest as distinct, labeled controls in the Demand Gen and AI Max campaign creation workflows, rather than burying them in advanced location options.^[1][20] For senior practitioners this is primarily a UI change, but it has an operational consequence: new campaigns built in these types after the update will show a clearer default choice at setup, reducing the risk that a manager unfamiliar with the distinction accepts the broader default without noticing it. Review any Demand Gen or AI Max campaigns created before this UI change to confirm the intent setting is what you intended.^[20]

Location Asset Quality Requirements: GBP Sync and Disapprovals

Google updated its location asset guidance to address a wave of disapprovals tied to capitalization and punctuation mismatches between Google Ads and Google Business Profile (GBP) data.^[20][21] The update is described as editorial rather than a policy enforcement change, but the practical effect is real: if your business name in GBP uses unconventional capitalization—for example, all-lowercase or all-caps—the location asset synced to Google Ads may trigger an automatic disapproval. The fix is to correct the business name formatting inside GBP and allow the sync to propagate, which typically takes 24–72 hours. Accounts running local service campaigns that depend on location assets for eligibility should audit GBP data now rather than waiting for a disapproval to surface in a policy notification.^[21][20]

Reporting: Consolidated Location Views Replace Older Patterns

Google’s location reporting interface has continued to consolidate toward a unified view that distinguishes targeted locations from matched locations more clearly than earlier implementations.^[17][16] The practical implication is that advertisers relying on legacy saved report configurations—particularly custom Report Editor segments built before mid-2026—should verify that the segmentation still maps to the correct dimension. The User Location report, which shows where users were physically located, remains a separate pull and is not surfaced by default in the main interface; it still requires a custom report build in Report Editor.^[18][10]

Local Services Ads Migration to Performance Max

Google began migrating certain Local Services Ads (LSA) accounts to Performance Max in September 2026.^[22][23] For location targeting specifically, this migration matters because Performance Max campaigns use Google’s automated targeting layer, which can expand delivery beyond manually specified locations when the algorithm judges conversion probability to be high. Advertisers migrating from LSA should explicitly audit the location settings in the resulting PMax campaign on day one of the migration and confirm that the Presence option is set, that a defined radius or location list is in place, and that exclusions for unserviceable areas have been carried over. Location targeting parameters from an LSA campaign do not automatically transfer with full fidelity to a PMax structure.^[22][1]

Summary Table: What Changed, What to Check, What to Ignore

Change	Type	Who Is Affected	Action Required	Source
Location exclusions confirmed as presence-only (do not block interest-based matches)	Policy / behavior clarification	Any campaign using Presence or interest targeting with negative locations	Switch to Presence targeting or accept interest-based leakage and monitor monthly	[12][15]
Demand Gen and AI Max now surface presence vs. interest as a labeled UI choice at setup	UI / workflow change	Advertisers building or managing Demand Gen or AI Max campaigns	Audit all pre-update Demand Gen and AI Max campaigns for correct intent setting	[1][20]
Location asset disapprovals triggered by GBP name capitalization/punctuation mismatches	Editorial / policy enforcement	Any account with location assets synced from GBP, especially local service campaigns	Audit GBP business name formatting and resync; allow 24–72 hours for propagation	[20][21]
Consolidated location reporting view; legacy custom report segments may mis-map	Reporting / UI change	Advertisers using saved custom Report Editor configurations from before mid-2026	Verify saved report dimensions still map correctly; rebuild User Location report if needed	[17][16][18]
LSA-to-Performance Max migration begins September 2026; location settings do not auto-transfer	Product / structural change	Local Services Ads advertisers in affected verticals	On migration day: audit PMax location option, radius/list, and exclusions before campaign goes live	[22][23][1]

What to Ignore Until Further Evidence

No verified launch of a new location-targeting capability—such as a new targeting tier, a new radius increment option, or a new geo-signal type—was documented in the retrieved sources for the 30 days ending September 2026.^[16] Claims circulating in industry forums about an expanded “hyper-local” radius below the 1 km / 0.62 mile floor should be treated with skepticism; as of the latest Google Ads Editor documentation, the minimum permitted radius remains 1 km, and no official source has announced a change to that floor.^[6][24] Do not adjust campaign structure on the basis of unverified feature announcements.

---

References

1. [1] https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/1722038?hl=en support.google.com
2. [2] https://www.servicegrower.com/blog/geo-targeting-google-ads www.servicegrower.com
3. [3] https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/1722043?hl=en-GB support.google.com
4. [4] https://akselera.tech/en/insights/guides/google-ads-geographic-targeting-local akselera.tech
5. [5] https://www.adflint.com/blog/local-radius-targeting-google-and-meta www.adflint.com
6. [6] https://omologist.com/google-ads/location-targeting-radius/ omologist.com
7. [7] https://www.growthspreeofficial.com/blogs/google-ads-audit-b2b-saas-145k-spend-case-study www.growthspreeofficial.com
8. [8] https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/2453995?hl=en support.google.com
9. [9] https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/6317?hl=en support.google.com
10. [10] https://developers.google.com/google-ads/api/docs/targeting/location-targeting developers.google.com
11. [11] https://searchengineland.com/location-targeting-google-ads-balancing-automation-control-43… searchengineland.com
12. [12] https://www.searchenginejournal.com/author/brooke-osmundson/ www.searchenginejournal.com
13. [13] https://www.mbadv.agency/google-ads/audience-targeting www.mbadv.agency
14. [14] https://discovermybusiness.co/geofencing-google-ads-in-2026/ discovermybusiness.co
15. [15] https://www.get-ryze.ai/blog/google-ads-location-targeting-not-working-fix www.get-ryze.ai
16. [16] https://clickyowl.com/google-ads-location-targeting/ clickyowl.com
17. [17] https://clickguardian.ai/blog/google-ads-location-targeting clickguardian.ai
18. [18] https://geotargetly.com/blog/adwords-geotargeting-strategies-to-boost-your-conversion-rate geotargetly.com
19. [19] https://searchengineland.com/whats-changed-in-google-ads-locations-reporting-and-why-you-n… searchengineland.com
20. [20] https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ads-location-asset-requirements-update-42046.html www.seroundtable.com
21. [21] https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-ads-introduces-local-customer-optimization/5888… www.searchenginejournal.com
22. [22] https://www.kq2.com/stacker-business-economy/2026/09/17/google-local-services-ads-transiti… www.kq2.com
23. [23] https://keyt.com/stacker-business-economy/2026/09/16/google-local-services-ads-transition-… keyt.com
24. [24] https://support.google.com/google-ads/editor/answer/33114?hl=en support.google.com