Audience Controls: Locations and Targeting

Audience controls decide where your ads may appear and which people they are aimed at. The controls differ by platform, so use the area that matches your campaign.

Where to find them

• Meta: at the Ad Set level, in the Audience Controls section.
• Google: in the campaign configuration step.
• LinkedIn: at the Campaign level inside a campaign group. A location is mandatory there, while other attributes are optional.

Set locations

1. In Marketing > Ad Manager, open your campaign at the right level.
2. Search for a country, state, city or address and pick the exact match from the list.
3. Check the highlighted area on the map.
4. Mark it Include or Exclude where those options exist, or adjust the radius slider.
5. Click the X beside a location to remove it.

A broader area, such as a whole country, often delivers better results than a long list of cities. On Google Search, Radius targeting cannot be combined with Exclude. Google also requires you to declare whether the campaign contains EU political ads before it can publish.

Meta intended audience (optional)

• Target Interests: interests, language, gender and age range.
• Lookalike Audience: people similar to a source you choose. Not allowed in Special Ad Category campaigns.
• Retargeting: custom audiences built from website, Page, lead form or customer list data.

The selectors show an estimated audience size. An audience marked Ready can be chosen. Not Ready cannot, and the information icon explains why, for example that it is too small.

Other platforms

Google can use audience segments such as customer match, website visitors, interests and lookalikes, depending on campaign type. LinkedIn uses professional attributes: company, demographics, job experience, education, interests and traits.

Good to know: Check the audience-size estimate after every change; a very narrow audience can limit delivery and increase cost.