Home

Support

How do you use geo-targeting?

Home

Support

How do you use geo-targeting?

Campaign

How do you use geo-targeting?

Target your campaigns specifically by countries, regions or postcode areas and use geo-placeholders to automatically adapt your ads to the location of your target audience.

Overview

With geo-targeting, you control the geographical regions in which your ads are displayed.

Depending on your campaign goal, you can narrow down your target audience at different levels – from entire countries to individual postcode areas. This allows you to reach users exactly where your offers are relevant.

Geo-targeting is particularly suitable for:

  • regional campaigns

  • local businesses

  • branch networks

  • location-based offers

  • regional promotions and events

What geo-targeting options are available?

Depending on the campaign, you can run your ads at different geographical levels.

Countries

Target your campaign to one or more countries.

Ideal for:

  • international campaigns

  • cross-border offers

  • multilingual advertising

Regions

Restrict delivery to individual federal states, cantons, or regions.

Ideal for:

  • regional brands

  • sales territories

  • regional services

Postcode areas

With postcode targeting, you can target with high precision – down to individual postcode areas.

This makes it possible, for example, to target specific cities, districts, or catchment areas.

This is particularly suitable for:

  • local retailers

  • car dealerships

  • real estate

  • gastronomy

  • regional events

Set up geo-targeting

Geo-targeting is configured directly during campaign creation.

To do this, navigate to the section:

Geo-Targeting

There you can either:

  • select regions

  • or enter postcodes.

Multiple postcodes can be separated by:

  • comma

  • space

  • semicolon

  • line break

from each other.

There is no limit to the number of postcodes.

Example:

10115200955066780331

Best practices

Use postcode targeting specifically

The smaller the target area, the more precisely you reach your target group.

This reduces scatter loss and increases the relevance of your ads.

Plan for higher CPC bids

Since the target group is more restricted in geo-targeting, a slightly higher CPC bid is often recommended.

This increases the likelihood that your ads will achieve sufficient reach.

Expand reach with additional campaigns

For maximum reach, it can make sense to run a general campaign without geo-restrictions in addition to a regional campaign.

This allows you to reach both local and national target audiences.

Consider location data

Geo-targeting works particularly reliably on:

  • desktop devices

  • tablets

  • smartphones on Wi-Fi

Depending on the end device and privacy settings, location accuracy may vary.

Use geo placeholders

In addition to geo-targeting, you can use geo placeholders in your ads.

AdUp will automatically replace the placeholder with the user's detected location.

This creates more personalised and relevant ads.

Available geo placeholders

Placeholder

Description

Example

{geo_country:Fallback}

Country

Germany

{geo_region:Fallback}

Federal state or region

Bavaria

{geo_city:Fallback}

City

Munich

Examples

Country

Ad:

Discover the most beautiful travel destinations in {geo_country:Europe}.

Result:

Discover the most beautiful travel destinations in Germany.

Region

Ad:

Holiday in {geo_region:your region}.

Result:

Holiday in Thuringia.

City

Ad:

Discover offers from {geo_city:near you} now.

Result:

Discover offers from Berlin now.

Using fallback values

Complete location information cannot be determined for every user.

Depending on the situation, only the following may be available:

  • the country,

  • the region

  • or no location at all.


Therefore, you should always define a sensible fallback.

Example:

{geo_city:your region}

If no city can be determined, the following appears automatically:

your region

This ensures your ad always remains fully readable.

Common sources of error

No fallback defined

Always use a sensible fallback text for geo placeholders.

Target area too small

Very narrow geo-targeting can significantly reduce the reach of your campaign.

CPC bids too low

Regional campaigns often require slightly higher bids than broadly targeted campaigns.

Unsuitable placeholders

Only use geo placeholders where they also make linguistic sense within the ad text.

Typical areas of application

Geo-targeting is particularly suitable for:

  • local shops

  • regional services

  • branch businesses

  • real estate portals

  • travel offers

  • events

  • franchise businesses

You might also be interested in this

5 min read

What targeting options are available?

Find out which targeting options AdUp offers and how you can target your campaigns by location, keywords, devices or past user interactions.

Advertiser

5 min read

How does keyword targeting work?

Learn how keyword targeting works, which keyword match types are available, and how to deliver your ads specifically for relevant search queries and content.

Advertiser