Getting out of area leads coming from your Google Ads campaign? You’re not alone. This is one of the most frustrating issues that local businesses deal with when running Google Ads campaigns.
Today I’m going to give you a few things you can do to try to resolve that issue and minimize the number of leads you get from outside your service area.
Before we get started, I need to set realistic expectations. We can do everything I’m going to talk about in this post, but there are still going to be times when out of location leads happen.
Google’s not perfect. There are going to be people on mobile devices who maybe work in the areas that you’re targeting and then drive back home, and for whatever reason their phone still thinks they’re in the location they were before. They could end up calling because they see your ad that way.
This isn’t a perfect solution, but these steps will dramatically reduce the number of out of area leads you receive.
If you’d prefer to watch a video on all of this, you can check out the video above. Or, you can read on to see how to fix out of area leads.
Step 1: Set Up Location Targeting Properly
A lot of out of location leads are going to come from improper location targeting settings, so this is where we need to start.
To access your location settings, go to your campaign, click on Settings, and then you’ll see your location targeting options.
Target By Zip Code or City
First things first – in terms of how I like to target locations, this isn’t directly related to out of location leads, but it’s good for optimization overall.
I like to target things by zip code wherever possible. Whether it’s zip code, city by city, or county by county, whatever is relevant for your business, doing it that way is really good for optimization.
The benefit of targeting specific zip codes or cities is that you can see which areas are performing better than others. If you just drop a radius around your location, everything gets lumped together and you can’t optimize based on individual location performance.
Exclude Locations Outside Your Service Area
This is where we start addressing the out of location lead problem.
You don’t need to go as ridiculous as I do sometimes with these campaigns, but at the very least you want to exclude every other state.
I also exclude Canada and Mexico if I’m running campaigns in the United States.
Then within the state that I’m advertising in, at a bare minimum I will exclude every other county.
If you want to get really thorough with it, you can exclude every other zip code and every other city up to the edge of your location area that you’re targeting.
This is one layer that you can add in to try to exclude some of those out of location leads.
The more specific you are with your exclusions, the less likely Google is to show your ads to people outside your service area.
Step 2: Change Your Location Options Setting
This is probably the most important setting when it comes to preventing out of area leads, and most people have no idea it even exists.
Underneath all of your location targeting, there’s a section called “Location options”. Click on that to expand it.
You’re going to see two options:
Option 1: “Presence or interest: People in, regularly in, or who’ve shown interest in your targeted locations”
Option 2: “Presence: People in or regularly in your targeted locations”
You want to make sure that you have the second option selected – “Presence: People in or regularly in your included locations”.
Why This Setting Matters
If you have “Presence or interest” selected, here’s what happens:
Someone could be in another county or another state, and they could search for your service in your location, and your ad could show just based on that interest.
For example, let’s say your business is located in Orlando, Florida. If someone in North Carolina searches for “pool service Orlando Florida”, your ad can show up for that person in North Carolina because they’ve “shown interest” in your targeted location.
If that person in North Carolina clicks on your ad and calls you, you’re still going to get charged for that click even though you can’t help them.
By selecting “Presence” only, you’re telling Google to only show your ads to people who are physically in or regularly in your targeted locations.
This one setting change alone can eliminate a huge percentage of your out of area leads.
Step 3: Add Location-Based Negative Keywords
The final thing we want to do to try to exclude out of location calls is layer in negative keywords on top of these location settings.
Even outside of the location stuff, negative keywords are extremely important for any Google Ads campaign. But when it comes to preventing out of area leads, they’re critical.
Add Other States As Negative Keywords
What I will do on a lot of my campaigns is add in negative keywords for every other state that I don’t want my ads showing up for.
I’ll add in the full state name and the state abbreviation for each state.
For example, if I’m advertising in Washington, I’ll add negative keywords for:
- Oregon
- OR
- California
- CA
- Idaho
- ID
And so on for every other state in the country.
This prevents your ads from showing when someone searches for “[your service] in Oregon” or uses any other state in their search.
Add Other Cities As Negative Keywords
You don’t have to go super ridiculous with it, but if you’re in a state that has other major cities or other places of interest, sometimes it makes sense to actually go through and add in other cities that you don’t want to show up for.
For example, if you are in California and you’re trying to advertise in San Jose, I would add in negatives for San Francisco, Los Angeles, Sacramento, and any other major city that other people could potentially search for.
I’ll add those in as well to try to exclude some of those searches too.
It won’t make or break things, but it’s just something that I try to do to layer in another level of protection in terms of trying to prevent those out of location leads.
How To Add Negative Keywords
To add negative keywords to your campaign, go to Keywords in your campaign navigation, then click on Negative Keywords.
From there, you can add your list of location-based negative keywords.
I recommend creating a negative keyword list that includes all of these location exclusions so you can easily apply it to any new campaigns you create in the future.
What To Expect After Making These Changes
If you do those three things – set up proper location targeting with exclusions, change your location options to “Presence” only, and add location-based negative keywords – you should be able to add in some layers of protection to prevent most of those out of area calls.
These changes should help you control the issue and try to constrain Google a little bit more to get as many leads as possible from your targeted area.
You’ll Still Get Some Out Of Area Leads
Like I mentioned at the beginning, Google isn’t perfect.
Sometimes you can have all of this set up properly, do all the location exclusions, set the right setting for presence, add in all the negatives, and still here and there you might get an out of location call from Google Ads.
That’s just bound to happen. The platform isn’t perfect, technology is never perfect, and that kind of stuff can happen.
But if you do these types of things, you can make that much less of an issue.
Instead of getting 20 out of area leads per month, you might only get 2 or 3. That’s a huge improvement and means more of your budget is going toward leads you can actually help.
Monitor and Adjust
After you make these changes, keep an eye on your campaign over the next few weeks.
Check your call tracking data or ask people who call where they’re located. If you’re still getting a significant number of out of area leads, look for patterns.
Are they all coming from one specific city or state? Add that as a negative keyword.
Are they searching for your service in a specific location outside your area? Add that location as a negative keyword.
The more you monitor and refine your targeting and negative keywords, the better your results will be.
Conclusion
Getting out of area leads from your Google Ads campaign is frustrating, but it’s not something you just have to accept.
By setting up proper location targeting with exclusions, changing your location options to “Presence” only, and adding location-based negative keywords, you can dramatically reduce the number of out of area leads you receive.
Remember that this won’t be perfect, but it will make a huge difference in the quality of leads you generate and ensure more of your ad spend is going toward people you can actually help.
Need Help With Your Google Ads Campaign?
If you’re struggling with out of area leads or any other issues with your Google Ads campaign and want help fixing them, feel free to reach out.
Click the button below to apply for a free consultation. I’ll review your application personally, and if I feel like I can help you out, I’ll reach out to schedule a call.
Check out a post we made recently going over some Tree Service Google Ads tips.
Thanks for reading!
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