How to Change Target Location in Facebook Ad

Trying to change the location on a running Facebook Ad campaign and struggling to find the right button? You're not alone. We'll show you exactly how to edit the target location in your existing campaigns, plus we’ll cover the best practices for setting up your location targeting correctly from the very start.

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Why Your Facebook Ad Location Matters

Pinpointing the right location for your Facebook ads is one of the most powerful ways to improve your campaign's performance. When you show your ads to people in a specific geographic area, you aren't just spending your budget more efficiently, you're also making your marketing more relevant. This simple setting determines who sees your ad, so getting it right is the first step toward getting better results.

Here’s what precise location targeting helps you do:

• Increase Relevance: A user in London probably isn't interested in a "50% off" deal for a restaurant in New York. Serving ads specific to a user's location makes your offer instantly more appealing and relevant.
• Maximize Your Budget: Every dollar spent showing ads to people outside your service area or shipping zone is a dollar wasted. Tightening your location targeting ensures your budget is spent on potential customers you can actually serve.
• Reach the Right Customers: For brick-and-mortar stores, local service providers, or events, location targeting is everything. It allows you to focus on the community right outside your door.

Understanding Facebook’s Four Location Options

Before you jump into changing locations, it’s important to understand the different targeting options Facebook provides within the Ad Set level. You’ll find these settings in the 'Audience' section under 'Locations'. Many advertisers just leave the default setting without realizing it might not be the best fit for their goals.

Here are the four choices and what they mean:

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1. People living in or recently in this location

This is the default and broadest option. It targets people whose home is within your selected area and people who were recently traveling there.

• When to use it: This is a decent catch-all for broad campaigns where physical presence is the main factor. Think tourism boards, large events, or brands that want to capitalize on both residents and visitors.
• When to avoid it: If you're a local business that relies on residents (like a dentist, gym, or HVAC company), this setting can waste money on tourists who will never become repeat customers.

2. People living in this location

This option targets users whose home, as determined by Facebook, is within your selected boundary. This is the best option for most local businesses who want to reach residents within their service area.

• When to use it: This is the go-to setting for local businesses like restaurants, retail stores, real estate agents, local service providers, and anyone trying to build a local customer base.

3. People recently in this location

This setting targets people who have recently been in the selected area but whose home is located more than 125 miles / 200 kilometers away. Facebook identifies this based on the de-identified and aggregate information from mobile devices that have location services turned on.

• When to use it: This is perfect for businesses that want to follow up with recent tourists or visitors. For example, a souvenir shop or a restaurant in a tourist district could use this to run retargeting ads inviting people back on their next trip.

4. People traveling in this location

Finally, this option targets people an estimated more than 125 miles / 200 kilometers from their home location. It's designed to specifically capture people who are currently traveling in the area you’ve selected.

• When to use it: Ideal for hotels, tour operators, airports, car rental services, and businesses whose primary customers are travelers. Think "Last-minute tour tickets available" or "Dinner special near your hotel."

How to Change the Target Location in an Existing Campaign

If you have a campaign that’s live or in draft and you need to adjust its location settings, the process is straightforward. Remember that any significant changes to a live ad set can trigger the ad review process again and temporarily reset its learning phase, which might cause a short-term dip in performance.

Here are the steps to follow:

1. Navigate to the Facebook Ads Manager: Open your Facebook Ads Manager dashboard.
2. Find Your Campaign and Ad Set: Identify the campaign you want to edit. Click on its name to navigate inside it to the Ad Set level. An Ad Set is where your audience, budget, and targeting settings, including location, are configured.
3. Enter the Editing Mode: Check the box next to the ad set where you want to change the location and click the Edit button that appears in the toolbar above. An editing panel will slide out from the right side.
4. Go to the Audience Section: Scroll down in the editing panel until you find the Audience module. If this module is collapsed, click on it to expand the details.
5. Edit your location settings: This is the place where you will see the exact location settings used in the current ad. Here, you’ll be able to either update, remove, or modify your location in just a few simple steps:
6. Save Your Changes: Once all of your changes have been finalized, click the green “Publish” or “Update” button in the bottom floating toolbar. Facebook will then review the changes before your campaign resumes.

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Tips for More Effective Location Targeting

Beyond simply picking a city, you can be much more precise. Here are a few advanced strategies to make your ads more effective.

Use Radius Targeting for Proximity

If you have a physical location (like a cafe or hair salon), radius targeting is your best friend. Instead of targeting an entire city, you can target a 1, 3, or 5-mile radius around your specific address. This ensures you’re only reaching people who are actually close enough to stop by. Just type your address into the location search bar and then adjust the mileage-based dropdown that appears next to it.

Always Layer Exclusions for Efficiency

Exclusion is just as powerful as inclusion. Maybe you want to target the entire state of New York but your shipping is prohibitively expensive to Long Island. You can include "New York" as a state but exclude specific ZIP codes or cities in Long Island. This refines your audience and stops you from serving ads to people you can't properly serve, helping your ad budget go much further.

Upload Bulk Locations

If you're managing ads for a business with many locations, like a national franchise or a chain of retail stores, don't waste time adding dozens (or even hundreds) of addresses manually. Facebook allows you to upload many locations at once using a CSV file. Just click the "Add Locations in Bulk" option that appears underneath the search bar we mentioned previously in the 'Locations' settings!

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'Drop Pin' Anywhere on a Location Map

Sometimes a specific address, city, or zip code doesn't quite define the geographic area you are trying to reach with your campaign. Not a problem! Facebook allows you to literally "Drop Pin" the exact spot you are trying to focus and center your ads' geographic concentration for an extremely ad-hoc radius-based location setup.

Final Thoughts

Adjusting your Facebook ad's target location is a simple task that can have a huge impact on your results. Whether you’re editing a live campaign or setting one up for the first time, taking a moment to choose the right targeting option - like focusing on "people living in this location" for a local business - ensures your message reaches the most relevant audience and every advertising dollar is well spent.

When you're running ads across multiple locations and campaigns, it quickly becomes challenging to see which areas perform best. Manually pulling reports from Facebook to analyze performance by city, state, or radius one-by-one is tedious and time-consuming. That's a huge part of why we created Graphed. We link directly to your ad accounts, pulling all your data into one place so you can instantly ask which locations are driving the most ROI. We automate your reporting so you can get back to optimizing your strategy, not drowning in spreadsheets trying to decide what's working best.