What radius should I use for Meta ads for a local newsletter?

Location is the one targeting setting I actually spend time on. Everything else stays broad.

"The only thing that matters, I mean a bunch of the little things matter, but the main thing is just location."

The rest of my setup is simple: the conversion event is a subscribe, and the audience is Advantage+. If the ad platform asks you to do a bunch of stuff that doesn't seem like it's going to pay off, don't do it. The simpler, the easier.

What radius should I start with?

There are two ways I start, depending on the market:

• Just the city. For a mid-size city, I'd usually target only the city you typed in first. Later, going outside your border a little with a pin is probably a smart move, to pick up neighboring towns where some people would still sign up.
• A pin and a radius. Drop a pin on the central part of the market and set a radius. My working default is 10 miles. That number is an instinct, not a tuned figure.

The trade-off is the entire decision. A bigger radius is cheaper because Meta has more people to work with. But you start paying for people who won't care about your local content.

"The more population, the lower your subscribe cost. But you can't just do a massive population because they have to care."

What if my area isn't a clean circle?

Mix city names and pins. If the community name isn't exactly a city, type it in and see if Meta literally pulls it up. If a neighborhood name really means three cities, put the three cities in. Or drop a pin, say five miles, and check whether it covers the area well.

One campaign I worked on that was getting 11 cents a subscriber was set up exactly like that: three typed city names plus a pin with a two-mile radius for another area closer to the lake.

Check the map before you stack locations. When a client handed me a long list of towns for a rural county, I looked at the map and saw the 10-mile radius around the main town already covered them. We didn't need to put them in.

Can my ads reach further than my content covers?

Yes, and that's often the smart play. You can target whoever you want. The harder question is content. To readers, it's a newsletter about the main city. Occasionally you'll talk about the neighbors, but 80% to 90% of it is the main city. Meanwhile, the ads can reach the surrounding communities, so the reader base can be a lot bigger.

There's a line to watch. Cover the neighboring towns too much and you risk annoying your ideal base, who start thinking it's full of stuff they don't care about. Once you gain tons of subscribers, you can feel a bit looser about bringing that other stuff in.

Why does Meta say my audience is way bigger than the real population?

Its audience size is an estimate, and it can run high. On one multi-town launch, Meta said we were reaching almost a million people. I'd guessed the cities we covered added up to something like 400,000.

Don't trust the estimate and don't panic about it either. Do a quick population lookup and look at the map. Then check the result that actually matters after launch: open rate. On that brand-new list it was 51%, which told me we were reaching the right people. It will drop over time, but a high early open rate is a good sign the targeting is right.

When should I exclude places?

When your radius swallows an area you don't cover. A guest on my podcast targets 10 miles around his city and excludes the neighboring city and state that fall inside it. Exclusions keep the radius honest.

What about age and other settings?

• Age: leave the default. You won't get many subscribers under 25, and even if you set 18, they won't subscribe and Meta probably won't show it to them much.
• Detailed targeting: blank.
• Statewide brands: split into two campaigns, one targeting the metro and one targeting the rest of the state, each with creative that names its audience.

When should I change the location?

Location is one of the easier levers when a campaign underperforms, and it goes both ways. For a small audience, think about making it bigger. Where you already cast a big, wide net and it isn't working, try shrinking it.

Just don't reach for it first when costs rise on a campaign that was working. When cost per subscriber creeps toward a dollar, refresh the creative before you change anything else. Widening the radius just buys you people who care less. More in when to refresh creative.

And give very rural markets some grace. In one of the most rural areas we cover, the creative didn't look like where people live. Don't write a market off because the first results aren't ideal there.