Stop paying for Google Ads clicks from the wrong towns

Here's a quick tip that could save a few hundred dollars on your Google Ads budget.

I've got a client who runs an auto body shop in Jacksonville. The campaign targets Jacksonville. The ad copy says Jacksonville. The landing page says Jacksonville.

Google still showed our ad for this search:

autobody shop tallahassee

Tallahassee is about 165 miles from Jacksonville. Two and a half hours’ drive. How likely is it that this person wanted a body shop in Jacksonville?

This is an obvious mismatch. I've seen similar mismatches in other accounts where we only want to serve customers in one town or city.

I've written about using ad copy to stop the wrong clicks. Here's another way: add the names of places you don't serve as negative keywords.

Use this prompt in your favourite AI. Replace the city, radius and driving time with what makes sense for your business.

Create two lists of place names around [insert your city here] for use in Google Ads. Use a [200-mile] straight-line radius from the city centre as the outer limit. Include cities, towns, villages and Census-designated communities across state boundaries.

Split the places into:

1. Places within [60 minutes] driving time, including exactly 60 minutes.
2. Places more than [60 minutes] driving time away.

Use reliable geographic data and actual road-routing estimates. Do not estimate driving time from straight-line distance. State the starting point and whether the estimates include traffic.

Format both lists as follows:

• One place name per line.
• No state names, distances, drive times, bullets or headings inside the lists.
• Single-word names without quotation marks: Dover
• Multi-word names in straight double quotes: "Eagle Lake"
• Alphabetical order.
• Remove duplicate names within each list.

If a place name appears in both groups, leave it out of the second list.

Provide two downloadable plain-text files.

I've asked for two lists because distance alone doesn't tell me who might become a customer.

• The first list contains places within an hour's drive. I'll discuss these with my client to see if they already get customers from those areas, or would like to.

• The second list contains places further away. For this body shop, they're unlikely to be worth targeting. For a specialist business, customers might travel further.

Then I'll add the unwanted place names as negative keywords.

It won't catch every wrong search. But it should help me avoid paying for another person looking for a body shop two and a half hours away.

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