For Australian small businesses, every dollar of your marketing budget needs to work hard. Geo-targeting and radius bidding allow you to stop showing ads to people who are too far away to use your services, focusing your spend instead on the high-value suburbs right on your doorstep.
By narrowing your reach to specific postcodes or a set distance from your physical location, you can increase your conversion rates and ensure you aren't paying for clicks from users in Perth when you only service South East Queensland.
Prerequisites: What You’ll Need
Before we dive into the setup, ensure you have the following ready:- An active Google Ads account.
- A Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) linked to your Google Ads account (highly recommended for radius bidding).
- A clear understanding of your 'serviceable area' (the specific suburbs or distance you are willing to travel).
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Step 1: Open Your Campaign Settings
Log in to your Google Ads dashboard. Navigate to the Campaigns tab on the left-hand sidebar. Select the specific campaign you want to optimise. Once inside the campaign, click on Settings in the secondary menu.Screenshot Description: You should see a list of settings including 'Budget', 'Bidding', and 'Locations'. Click on the 'Locations' row to expand the options.
Step 2: Access the Location Targeting Menu
Within the Locations setting, you will see a search bar. This is where most beginners stop, but we are going to go deeper. Click on the Advanced Search link located just below the location entry box. This opens a map interface that makes precise targeting much easier.Step 3: Choose Between 'Location' and 'Radius'
In the Advanced Search window, you will see two tabs at the top: Location and Radius.- Location: Use this to target specific Australian postcodes (e.g., 4000 for Brisbane CBD), cities, or states.
- Radius: Use this to target a specific distance around a point (e.g., 10km around your Fortitude Valley office).
Step 4: Setting Up Postcode Targeting
If you want to target specific suburbs, stay on the Location tab. Type in the postcode or suburb name. Google will show you the 'Reach' (estimated audience size). Click Target to add it to your list. Pro Tip: In Australia, postcodes can cover large areas. If you are a local plumber, targeting by suburb name (e.g., 'Chermside') is often more intuitive than memorising postcodes.Step 5: Setting Up Radius Bidding
Switch to the Radius tab. This is perfect for 'brick and mortar' businesses like cafes or gyms.- Enter your business address or the name of a landmark.
- Set the distance (e.g., 5 or 10).
- Important: Ensure the dropdown is set to Kilometres (km), not Miles, as Google defaults to US measurements.
- Click Target.
Step 6: Review Targeted Areas on the Map
After adding your locations or radiuses, look at the map on the right. It will highlight the targeted areas in blue. Ensure there are no gaps in your service area. If you see overlapping circles, don't worry—Google is smart enough not to double-charge you for a single click.Step 7: Configure Location Options (The 'Presence' Trap)
This is the most common mistake Australian businesses make. Click on Location Options below the search bar. You will see two choices under 'Target':- Presence or Interest: People in, regularly in, or who’ve shown interest in your targeted locations.
- Presence: People in or regularly in your targeted locations.
Step 8: Save and Navigate to 'Locations' Sidebar
Click Save on your settings. Now, go to the left-hand menu and click on Locations (this is different from the settings page; it's a dedicated reporting tab). Here, you will see a list of all the postcodes or radiuses you just added.Step 9: Implement Bid Adjustments
This is where 'Radius Bidding' becomes powerful. You might want to show your ad to anyone within 20km, but you’d be willing to pay more to reach someone within 5km because they are more likely to visit.In the 'Bid adj.' column next to your 5km radius, click the pencil icon and select Increase. Enter a percentage (e.g., 20%). This tells Google: "If a user is within 5km, I'm willing to bid 20% more than my standard rate to win that click."
Step 10: Set Up Negative Locations
Just as important as where you want to show is where you don't want to show. If you are based in Brisbane but don't service Ipswich, go back to Advanced Search, type 'Ipswich', and click Exclude. This prevents your ads from appearing to users in that specific zone.Step 11: Monitor and Refine
After 14 days, return to the Locations tab. Look at the 'Cost per conversion' for each area. If 'Suburban Area A' is costing $50 per lead while 'Suburban Area B' costs $10, you should increase the bid adjustment for Area B and decrease it (or remove it) for Area A.---
Pro Tips for Australian Businesses
- The ABN Advantage: Ensure your Google Business Profile is verified with your ABN. This allows you to use 'Location Extensions', which makes radius bidding much more accurate as Google knows exactly where your shopfront is.
- State-Wide with Exclusions: If you service all of Queensland except the far north, it is faster to target 'Queensland' as a state and then add 'Cairns' and 'Townsville' as Excluded locations.
- Check the 'User Location' Report: Periodically check the 'Matched Locations' report to see exactly where people were standing when they clicked. You might find you're getting clicks from unexpected areas.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Using Miles instead of Kilometres: A 20-mile radius is 32km—much larger than most local businesses intend to cover.
- Over-segmenting: Don't add 500 individual postcodes. It makes the data messy. Group them into regions or use a few broad radiuses with bid adjustments.
- Ignoring the 'Presence' Setting: As mentioned in Step 7, failing to change this setting is the #1 cause of wasted spend in local campaigns.
Troubleshooting
- My ads aren't showing in my own suburb: Check if you have excluded your own location by mistake, or check if your bid is too low. Sometimes, highly competitive areas (like Brisbane CBD) require higher bids to appear.
- The map shows the wrong area: Double-check your postcode. Some Australian postcodes are shared across very different regions or have similar names to places in the US/UK. Always verify on the visual map.
- Low traffic: If your radius is too small (e.g., 1km), your audience may be too small for the ads to trigger. Try expanding to at least 5-10km for suburban areas.
Next Steps
Now that your geo-targeting is locked in, you should ensure your ad copy reflects your local focus. Mention your service area in your headlines (e.g., "Best Electrician in Ascot").If you need help fine-tuning your local reach or want a professional audit of your Google Ads account, the team at Local Marketing Group is here to help. Contact us today to book a strategy session.