Buying clicks from people who are not in the country

Interest targeting makes sense for travel or relocation businesses, whose customers search from somewhere else. For a local service, a shop that ships domestically or a clinic, it buys clicks from people who cannot become customers.

Those clicks are averaged into the campaign's numbers, so the campaign looks weaker than it is without anyone seeing where the money went.

The check reads each campaign's location targeting option and lists those set to presence or interest.

Checks that weigh money or clicks judge what they find on your own account's numbers, not on one figure applied to every account, so what counts as a problem on a small account is not the same on a large one. Checks on settings read how the account is set up.

When there is too little to go on, the check says so instead of guessing. A finding always comes with the rows behind it, so you can read the evidence before you decide.

1. In Google Ads, open each campaign, then Settings, then Locations, then Location options.
2. Check whether Target is set to Presence or interest, or to Presence.
3. Open Insights and reports, then When and where ads showed, and read the location tabs to see where clicks really came from.
4. Note spend from outside the areas you serve.

For a business that serves people in a place, set the option to Presence: people in or regularly in your targeted locations.

Keep Presence or interest only where people search from elsewhere on purpose, such as travel, and say so in the campaign name.

• Location targeting
• Presence or interest

The checks next to this one in Location and scheduling, each with its own page.

• A country targeted in a language it does not speak
• Counting walk-ins while no ad shows an address
• Counting walk-ins without a radius round the shop
• Local Services and Search running side by side
• No language chosen, so every language is chosen
• Serving around the clock