 Want to reach more people across the Manawatū? It's easy with Facebook Ads location targeting. One of the biggest benefits of Facebook ads is location targeting. You can target a region, a city like Palmy or go as narrow as a 1.6km radius to reach those who live and work nearby. Service-based businesses can use Facebook Ads to effectively reach people within their service area and keep their business top of mind within their local community. Location targeting is often overlooked If you've ever seen Facebook ads for Christchurch painters or Auckland real estate agents come up on your feed it's because they've skipped the location targeting step. Without specifying your target audience, Facebook will show your ad to anyone in NZ 18+, and due to the larger population in places like Auckland, much of your budget could be being spent there without you realising it. Telltale signs of this happening are getting lots of comments or messages along the lines of "where are you based?". At a 'hyperlocal' level you could go super narrow with your targeting, an example being a cafe targeting those who live or work nearby rather than targeting a whole city.  Choose how narrow you'd like to go. The above shows three common location scopes targeting the larger region, the city and the CBD area. Location Reporting & Target Audiences Unfortunately Facebook Ads location reporting is generally only available at a regional level (only showing Manawatu-Whanganui and no further breakdown) and can be quite hard to find within the Facebook Ads settings unless you spend time hunting for it. This is where 3rd party reporting can help, as can setting up location targeting properly or creating different campaigns for different locations to help break down results. There is also lots of data on how many people fit your location targeting parameters. For example at the time of writing (July 2025) Facebook estimates an audience size of 250,600 - 294,900 people within an 80km radius around Palmerston North. With a $100 ad spend you can reach between 20,000 to 50,000 people so ideally you want to narrow your audience down to be closer to 50,000 people by adding age, gender and interest-based target parameters to reach those most likely to be interested in your business. Very few ad platforms give you such control over your targeting. Want local Facebook Ad support?
I've worked with clients across the country (even a few outside of NZ) but my passion is helping local businesses and organisations here in Palmerston North and the wider Manawatū region. If you'd like to learn more or have any questions reach out to [email protected]. I don't like giving general advice, I prefer to give recommendations specific to your business. Next steps for me are to review your Facebook page, any ads you have running at the time and your website (if applicable) to asses what messaging and content you have available to work with. From there I can prepare a FREE Facebook Ads Audience Estimate to give you an idea of what your potential Facebook ad reach is given your targeting parameters. |