Local PPC is paid search aimed at a radius rather than a country: the ads a plumber, clinic or restaurant runs to reach people close enough to become customers. It is the fastest channel to switch on and the easiest to waste money in, because the settings that decide who sees the ad are buried and the defaults are broader than most local advertisers realise. This page explains how the geographic targeting actually behaves, what Quality Score is and is not, where pay-per-lead formats fit, and the questions that separate a competent local account manager from someone running a template.
What location targeting actually does
Google's documentation describes location targeting as based on a variety of signals, including user settings, devices and behaviour on its platform, and it states that 100% accuracy is not guaranteed. That single sentence should govern how a local account is judged: some spend will always land slightly outside the intended area, and the goal is a tolerable rate rather than zero. The setting that matters most is the choice between presence and presence or interest. Google recommends the broader presence or interest option, which reaches people in the targeted locations and people showing interest in them, and suggests the narrower presence option for sensitive verticals or where an advertiser specifically wants to exclude interested users outside the region. For a business whose crews will not travel, presence is often the right choice even though it reduces volume. Radius targeting requires a radius of at least one kilometre around a location, and Google cautions that very small radii can cause ads to show intermittently or not at all.
What Quality Score is, and what it is not
Quality Score is the most misquoted number in local PPC. Google describes it as a diagnostic tool meant to give a sense of how ad quality compares to other advertisers, reported on a scale from 1 to 10 at the keyword level, and built from three components: expected click-through rate, meaning the likelihood the ad is clicked when shown; ad relevance, meaning how closely the ad matches the intent behind the search; and landing page experience, meaning how relevant and useful the landing page is to people who click. The part that agencies often get wrong is stated plainly in the same documentation: Quality Score is not an input in the ad auction. It is a diagnostic for identifying how ads shown for certain keywords affect the user experience. Treat a low score as a pointer to which of the three components needs work, most often the landing page in local accounts, rather than as a lever to be optimised for its own sake.
Pay per click or pay per lead
For several local service categories, Google runs a separate pay-per-lead product alongside the click auction. Its Local Services Ads documentation describes paying only for leads related to your business and the services you offer, rather than for clicks, and mentions a Google Verified badge that signals a business has passed Google's screening process. Ranking behaviour is different too: the documentation notes that regularly failing to answer calls or respond to messages may affect ad ranking, and that listings without the badge appear below providers who have completed onboarding requirements. That makes the format unusually sensitive to how a business operates rather than how it advertises. The buying question is not which format is better in the abstract; it is whether your intake can answer promptly. A business that lets calls ring out will burn a pay-per-lead budget faster than a click budget, because responsiveness is priced in.
How to judge a local PPC provider
Four checks separate real management from a template. First, ask to see the location settings and the presence versus interest choice explained in your account's terms; a manager who cannot say which is set and why is not managing geography. Second, ask for the search terms report rather than the keyword report, because it shows what people actually typed and where the waste is. Third, ask what happens to a lead after the click: the tracking, the response time, and whether the provider reports on booked work rather than conversions counted at form submission. Fourth, ask how the account is structured by service area, and whether budgets are split so a high-value suburb is not competing for spend with a low-value one. Access matters as much as competence: insist the account sits under your own Google Ads ID with the agency granted access, so the history stays with you if the relationship ends.
Questions people ask about local ppc
How accurate is Google's location targeting?
Google says targeting is based on a variety of signals including user settings, devices and behaviour, and that 100% accuracy is not guaranteed. Expect some spill outside your area and manage it with the presence setting, exclusions and the search terms report rather than expecting perfection.
Should I target presence or presence and interest?
Google recommends the broader presence or interest option in general and suggests presence for sensitive verticals or where you want to exclude interested users outside the region. For a business with a hard service radius, presence usually wastes less, at the cost of some volume.
Does a higher Quality Score lower my cost per click?
Google states that Quality Score is not an input in the ad auction; it is a diagnostic tool on a 1 to 10 scale built from expected click-through rate, ad relevance and landing page experience. Use it to find which of those three needs work rather than as a target in itself.
Is Local Services Ads better than regular search ads?
It is different. It charges per lead rather than per click and rewards responsiveness; Google's documentation notes that regularly failing to answer calls or messages can affect ad ranking. If your intake is slow, fix that before buying leads, whichever format you choose.
How small can a targeting radius be?
Google requires a radius of at least one kilometre around a location and warns that very small radii may cause ads to show intermittently or not at all. For a tight urban catchment, targeting named cities or postal areas usually behaves more predictably than a minimal radius.