Radius Targeting in Meta Ads: People Around You Instead of the Whole City

When a local business advertises on Meta it usually picks a city. A café in one neighborhood of a large city that targets the whole city shows its ad to someone an hour away on the other side. That person may click, but is unlikely to come in. Part of the budget goes to people who will never reach the business.

Radius targeting fixes this. With Opus Growth you can now draw a circle in kilometres or miles around a place or an address when you create or edit an ad set. This post covers both methods, how to choose a radius, and one trap to watch for.

Two ways: around a place or around an address

Radius around a place. You pick a neighborhood or district and add a distance around it, for example "Brooklyn plus 5 km". If your location sits near the center of a neighborhood, this is the quickest route.

Radius around an address. You use the exact coordinates of your business as the center. This is more accurate when you sit on the border between two areas or when there is no obvious neighborhood center nearby. With several branches you can add a separate point for each.

Meta's limits: 1 to 80 if you use kilometres, 1 to 50 if you use miles. Opus Growth pulls any value outside that range back to the limit before sending it to Meta, so the request does not fail.

Setting it up from the chat

Tell your assistant "Open a new ad set for the downtown branch and target 4 km around the branch address." The assistant finds the location, adds the radius and shows a preview first. Nothing goes live until you approve it. You can tighten or widen the location of a running set the same way.

Copying a location setup that works

When one ad set's location setup performs well, rebuilding it by hand in a new set is error-prone. It is easy to forget a point or type a different radius. The assistant can now read the location setup of an existing set and carry it over to a new one exactly: cities, neighbourhoods, radius points, all as they were. When you test a new creative or bid strategy, this is the cleanest way to keep location constant.

How large should the radius be

The rule is simple: think about how far people will travel for you. For frequent visits like cafés, barbers and hair salons, 2 to 5 km is usually enough in a dense city. For less frequent but higher value services like dental clinics or car repair, 10 to 20 km is reasonable. In rural areas or for single-location specialist services you may need 30 km or more.

A very small circle shrinks the audience and Meta cannot deliver the ad enough. If delivery stays low, the first thing to try is a slightly larger radius.

Watch out: location ID, not location name

Meta recognizes locations by its own ID numbers, not by name. When the text "Brooklyn" is sent to the API, Meta often ignores it without an error and the set spreads to the whole country. The budget appears to run, but the targeting is gone. That is why Opus Growth looks up the location ID first and attaches the radius to that ID.

Also watch audience expansion. If Meta's Advantage+ audience is on, the ad can go beyond the circle. In Opus Growth this option is off by default, and you turn it on deliberately if you want it.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the smallest radius I can use?

The minimum on Meta is 1 km or 1 mile. If a smaller value is entered, Opus Growth sets it to 1.

Can I target several points in the same ad set?

Yes. You can add several places or addresses to one ad set and give each its own radius. This suits businesses with multiple branches.

Why is my ad shown to people outside the circle?

There are usually two reasons: Advantage+ audience expansion is on, or the location was sent as a name and Meta ignored it. Open the set's location settings and check that it really contains a radius.

Can I change the location of a live ad set?

Yes. Location targeting can be updated on a live set. A large change can put the set back into a short learning phase.