TL;DR
A local business does not need reach. It needs the right people, within a driveable distance, walking through the door. Most local Meta campaigns fail on the first point: they target a city, or a region, or "people interested in" something, and pay for clicks from people who will never visit. Set a tight radius around your real catchment, write creative that proves you are local, and measure foot traffic and bookings instead of clicks. The rest is detail.
Your catchment is smaller than you think
Ask a local business owner how far their customers travel and the answer is usually generous. Ask their booking data and the answer is smaller: most customers come from within 15 to 20 minutes of the door, and the ones who travel further are the exception, not the plan.
In Europe, Meta's location floor for housing-related ads is a 15 km radius, and the same discipline helps every local advertiser even when the rule does not apply. Start with a radius that matches a realistic drive, not your ambition. A restaurant can start at 5 to 10 km. A clinic or a showroom might stretch to 25 km. A business that needs a 50 km radius to find enough people has a demand problem, not a targeting problem, and buying a wider net will not fix it.
Pin the radius to your address, not to the city centre. A pin dropped on the town square reaches a different set of streets than a pin dropped on your actual door, and in dense areas the difference is the whole campaign.
City targeting is not local targeting
Targeting "people in Madrid" for a shop in one neighbourhood is not local advertising. It is national advertising with a local budget. Meta's city targeting covers everyone in the metro area, including people an hour away by public transport who will never make the trip.
Radius targeting with the "people living in or recently in this location" setting is the honest version. It reaches people who are actually there, not people who once listed the city on their profile. And it lets you layer: a tight radius for your core offer, a slightly wider one for a high-value service people will travel for, and nothing at all beyond that.
If your business has several locations, run one campaign per location. A shared campaign with a shared budget will always favour the location with the cheapest clicks, which is rarely the location that needs the customers.
Creative that proves you are local
Generic creative is the second leak. A stock photo of a smiling stranger and the headline "Best Dentist in Town" could be any dentist in any town, and the audience knows it. Local creative proves place.
Use the real shopfront, the real street, the real staff. Name the neighbourhood in the copy, not just the city. Mention the landmark everyone knows ("two minutes from the market", "opposite the station") rather than the postcode nobody remembers. Show a review from someone local, with a name and a detail that only a local would write. A generic testimonial could be bought anywhere. "Carmen fixed my crown on a Saturday before my daughter's wedding" could only come from your chair.
Local proof also kills the price objection before it forms. People pay more to a business they trust, and trust starts with recognition: I know that street, I have walked past that door, my neighbour goes there.
Offers that bring people in, not clicks that bring nothing
A local campaign should be judged on bookings, visits, and calls, not on click-through rate. A click from someone 200 miles away counts the same as a click from someone two streets away in Ads Manager, and only one of them can ever buy.
Make the call to action match the behaviour you want. "Book a visit" beats "Learn more" for a clinic. "Get directions" beats "Shop now" for a shop. Click-to-WhatsApp or click-to-call works for service businesses where the first step is a conversation, not a form. And if you run lead ads, keep the form to the minimum: name, phone, and one question that qualifies the visit. A ten-field form for a haircut is not qualification, it is a filter that keeps customers out.
Measure what happens after the click with your own data. A simple question at booking ("how did you hear about us") beats any attribution model for a local business, because the volume is small enough to ask and the answer is honest.
FAQ
What radius should I use for local Meta ads?
Match it to a realistic drive time, not your ambition. A restaurant or salon can start at 5 to 10 km, a clinic or showroom at up to 25 km. Pin the radius to your actual address, not the city centre, and widen only if the audience is genuinely too small.
Is city targeting enough for a local business?
No. City targeting covers the whole metro area, including people an hour away who will never visit. Radius targeting around your address, set to people living in or recently in the location, is the honest version.
Should I run one campaign for all my locations?
No. Run one campaign per location. A shared campaign and budget will always favour the location with the cheapest clicks, which is rarely the one that needs customers most.
What makes local ad creative work?
Proof of place: the real shopfront, the real street, the real staff, the neighbourhood named in the copy, and reviews with local detail. Generic stock creative could belong to any business in any town, and audiences treat it that way.
How should I measure a local Meta campaign?
On bookings, visits, and calls, not clicks. A click from 200 miles away counts the same as one from two streets away in Ads Manager. Track bookings in your own system and ask new customers how they found you.
MetaMaxd is a Meta ads agency. We would rather bring you forty people from your own neighbourhood than four thousand clicks from strangers. If your local ads are reaching the wrong map, we can redraw it.
