Start from how far people will travel
Think about your last 20 customers and where they came from. A dry cleaner serves the lanes around it. A gym draws from a little further, because people will ride ten minutes for one they like. A jeweller or a car dealer pulls buyers from across the city and nearby towns, since the purchase is big and planned weeks ahead.
The distances below are starting points. If you deliver, your delivery area is your target area, and if most of your buyers come from one side of town, that side matters more than a neat circle.
- Grocery, dry cleaning, bakery, salon: 2 to 5 km around the shop
- Restaurant, gym, coaching class, optical store: 3 to 8 km
- Furniture, electronics, ethnic wear, jewellery: the whole city
- Travel agents, solar installers, event planners: the city plus nearby towns, or the state
- Software and services sold online: several states or all of India
Localities or the whole city
Naming localities works well in big cities, where 5 km can cross a highway, a creek or a part of town your customers never visit. A salon in Andheri West might pick Andheri West, Versova, Lokhandwala and Juhu, the places its regulars live, instead of a circle that reaches into neighbourhoods with their own salons on every corner.
In a smaller city, people cross town more easily and the whole city is a manageable trip. Targeting the city is simpler there and you lose very little by doing it.
Don’t make the area too small
A tiny area sounds efficient, but it causes trouble. Only so many people live in two or three localities, and fewer of them open Facebook or Instagram every day. The ad keeps showing to the same faces, they stop noticing it, and enquiries dry up after the first few days.
If the area is small, keep age and gender wide. A 2 km circle combined with women aged 25 to 30 leaves very few people to show the ad to. Tighten one setting at a time, not all of them together.
Age and gender
Choose age by who pays and decides, not only by who uses the product. Children attend a coaching class, but parents choose it, so 28 to 50 suits it better than 10 to 16. A jeweller’s buyer is often a husband or son buying a gift, and a pest control booking is often made by whoever runs the household.
Set gender only when the business serves one gender, like a ladies’ salon or a men’s grooming studio. For everything else, leave it at all genders and let the photo and words in the ad draw the right people.
Keep the age range wide at the top end. A shop selling kurtas or mobile phones may picture buyers in their twenties, but people in their fifties and sixties buy for themselves and for their children. Cutting them out shrinks the audience without making it any sharper.
When to go wider
Widen the area if the first week brings few enquiries even though the ad and offer look right, if the same people keep enquiring, or if you sell something people will travel for. A festival offer or a big-ticket item can also justify a wider area for a short run.
In our app you pick the areas (localities, a city, a state or all of India), the age range and the gender when you buy a plan. If you aren’t sure, start with the travel distance for your type of business and widen it on the next plan if leads are thin.
Questions
What radius should a salon use for Facebook ads?
About 3 to 5 km around the salon, or the localities your regulars come from. Bridal packages can go city-wide, since brides book months ahead and will travel for the right salon.
Should I target my whole state?
Only if customers come from across the state, like a travel agent, an online coaching class or a supplier selling to shops. For a single shop it spreads your budget across people who will never visit.
Can I target two separate areas with one ad?
Yes. You can pick several localities, for example the areas around both your branches, as long as each one is a place your customers actually come from.