How location controls keep spend local

Controls that bind#

Countries, regions, cities, radii: stack them deliberately per ad set, and remember location now follows the ad set for lookalikes too. One catchment logic per account prevents overlap wars.

Meta own location targeting guide lists current options. Start at the Meta Ads hub.

Document every catchment with its business reason: radii without reasons expand silently. Local playbook sets the catchment logic.

Audit delivery maps against catchment intent monthly: platform delivery drifts toward cheap zones while reports stay green. Drift caught early costs little; drift caught quarterly costs a quarter. Delivery audits catch the drift.

Keep one catchment owner per account: shared geography edited by many hands fragments into overlapping radii within months. Ownership keeps maps clean. Ownership rules prevent overlap wars.

Radius discipline#

Size radii to travel behaviour: dense cities earn tight radii, rural catchments earn wide ones. Oversized radii buy commuters, tourists and passers-by alongside residents.

Split radii only when economics differ: stock, pricing or creative that changes by area deserves its own ad set. Identical areas stay consolidated. Consolidation governs the splits.

Review radius performance in reporting, not assumptions: delivery maps embarrass planning maps regularly. Ask our team for a geo audit.

Test radius tightness with split catchments: identical creative on tight versus wide radii reveals the commuter tax precisely. Evidence beats radius folklore. Radius tests price the expansion.

Consolidate identical radii quickly: three ad sets with the same catchment and different interests fragment learning for no reason. Merge and let creative sort. Catchment consolidation feeds learning.

Exclusions that save budget#

Exclude postcodes and areas where delivery, service or regulation cannot follow: irrelevant zones are pure waste. Exclusions are controls, so they genuinely bind.

Maintain an exclusion list per account like a suppression file: reviewed quarterly, documented always. Exclusion builds show the method.

Check excluded zones stay excluded after edits: structural changes can drop fine settings silently. Edit rules warn what resets.

Snapshot geo settings before refactors: screenshots or exports preserve fine exclusions that rebuilds forget. Snapshots turn mysteries into restores. Snapshot discipline saves rebuild weeks.

The residence trap#

Targeting is eligibility, not residence: a city target reaches people Meta deems relevant to the city, including visitors and recent movers. Campaigns assuming pure residents misread results.

Verify with location breakdowns in reporting and reconcile with CRM postcodes. Gaps between platform geography and order geography are normal; unexamined gaps are not. Meta location reporting shows the breakdowns.

Write copy for the reached, not the resident: commuters and visitors convert with different promises. Creative angles flex per reality.

Multi-location structure#

Store sets for chains, single campaigns for similarities: locations with shared economics stay consolidated while outliers get dedicated budgets. Ten identical ad sets is not localisation.

Localise creative per cluster: storefronts, staff, offers and directions outperform national polish locally. Local creative wins the catchment.

Weight spend to trading calendars per area: events, seasons and local demand shape budgets. Seasonal weighting plans the year.

UK specifics that matter#

Postcode discipline and travel realism: UK catchments are small and dense, so radii need care and London needs its own logic. Ten miles means different things in Mayfair and the Highlands.

Special-category advertisers face a 10-mile radius rule for specific locations: verify current constraints per account. Category rules list them.

Reconcile platform geography with order postcodes monthly: the truth lives in the till. Mismatch guide reconciles the counts.

Brief finance on geo mismatch early: platform geography and till geography differ by definition, so alignment prevents month-end arguments. Shared definitions keep peace. Attribution alignment extends to geography.

Frequently asked questions#