Location & Audience Targeting

Emily Truong

July 17, 2026 15:35

This documentation covers the New Ads Manager Experience (limited release starting July 15, 2026). If your dashboard looks different, please view [Creating a new Campaign / Ad Groups and Setting Targeting Goal] for support. Want early access to the new experience? Contact selfservehelp@groundtruth.com to upgrade your account.

Overview of Location & Audience Targeting

This step defines your geographic boundaries and pinpoints exactly who will see your ads. GroundTruth combines precise location inputs with behavioral, lookalike, and real-time proximity tools to ensure your ads are delivered to the right devices at the right moment.

To build out your targeting, you will configure two core layers:

Target Locations: Start by inputting your Target Locations to map out your ad group boundary.
Targeting Layers (Optional): Once your geography is set, you can layer one of three distinct targeting methods: (1) Target by Audience (based on historical visits, demographics, lookalikes), (2) Target Neighborhoods (reaching local communities through high-indexing areas), or (3) Target On-Premise (Mobile only, reaching real-time visitors inside or surrounding physical retail locations).

Best Practices

Prioritize Scale First: It’s highly recommended to leave all demographic filters set to "All" to preserve delivery scale. Over-filtering narrow physical boundaries or real-time On-Premise locations with strict demographic brackets will severely hamper delivery and cause under-pacing.
Keep Demographics Broad: Unless you’re running wide regional, statewide, or national campaigns where scale is not an issue, keep your demographic filters open. Stacking demographics onto small physical areas is a primary cause of underpacing.
Bulk Upload is Your Friend: If you have 3 or more location targets, use our bulk upload template to map them in seconds instead of typing out each manually.
Monitor Campaign Health: Keep an eye on the right-hand Budget Deliverability Meter. If it slips below “Good,” remove aggressive demographic or audience filters to reopen scale. [See Budget & Schedule 👉 Feature Deep Dive]

Core Geography: Target Locations

Define your target locations before layering additional targeting methods like audiences. The platform offers 3 ways to input your geography:

Search & Select: Target granularly by individual City, County, DMA, State, ZIP Code, Lat/Long, or precise Business Address.
Bulk Upload: Upload mass location lists instantly using our provided .csv template. [Read more about Location Bulk Upload]
Nationwide (New!): Toggle on "Run Nationwide" to target the entire United States.

Enabling Retargeting is an optional step. You can return to this page and turn on the retargeting toggle at any time.

Timing: If you enable retargeting after your ad group has launched, the platform will only begin building the custom audience from that day forward. It cannot gather retroactive data.
Audience Name: The system automatically generates a dynamic name for your retargeting audience, which you can customize to fit your naming conventions.

Target by Audience

This method reaches devices based on their historic, real-world past visitation habits (e.g., targeting frequent gym-goers or coffee shop visitors). Start typing keywords into the search bar or select Browse Audience Library to choose from three distinct data tiers:

Predictive Audiences: Powered by ZeroToOne.AI utilizing a Location Behavior Model (LBM). These segments identify what a consumer is highly likely to do next—and when—with over 90% predictive accuracy. [Read more about Predictive Audiences]

Deterministic Audiences: GroundTruth’s first-party audience segments built entirely on verified, historic, real-world past visitation data.

Premium Audiences: Verified third-party data segments provided by Datonics. These fill structural gaps between predictive and deterministic pools and carry a flatrate $1.50 CPM upcharge regardless of the number of audiences targeted. [Read more about Premium Audiences]

Target Neighborhoods

This proprietary technology builds a physical lookalike audience for a specific retail footprint. It serves ads to devices currently located in nearby geographic trade areas that demonstrate a high visitation frequency to specific stores or verticals.

Setup: Search and select from pre-existing brands and business categories, or build a Custom Location Group based on your own uploaded list of locations. [Read more about Neighborhoods]

Target On-Premise

Note: This targeting method is only available for the Mobile channel environment.

This real-time configuration instantly delivers ads to users currently standing inside a physical store, sitting in its parking lot, walking the retail block, or moving within a tight radial distance.

Setup: Search pre-existing brands/categories or select a Custom Location Group. Use the location dropdown menu to enforce your real-time boundaries:

In Store: Targets users strictly inside the physical building walls.
On Lot: Targets users inside the building or within its immediate parking lot perimeter.
Retail Block: Expands targeting to encompass the entire structural retail block.
Radial: Targets users within a specific custom radial proximity around the property.

Retargeting Framework (New!)

Enabling Retargeting automatically commands the system to build an additional, high-performing secondary ad group designed to re-engage consumers who have already been exposed to your initial ad creative.

The system streamlines this process by automatically cloning your primary ad group parameters with the following automated guardrails (which you can manually adjust before launching):

20% Budget Cap Protection: Automatically caps the budget of the retargeting ad group at 20% of your primary ad group's spend to safeguard your core campaign budget.
Channel Selection: Automatically defaults the channel environment to Mobile.
Flight Windows: The start date automatically schedules for 14 days after your primary ad group launches; the end date naturally aligns with your primary ad group's end date.
Inherited Settings: Location criteria, target audiences, and placement parameters automatically carry over from the primary ad group.

Enabling Retargeting is an optional step. You can return to this page and turn on the retargeting toggle at any time.

Timing: If you enable retargeting after your ad group has launched, the platform will only begin building the custom audience from that day forward. It cannot gather retroactive data.
Audience Name: The system automatically generates a dynamic name for your retargeting audience, which you can customize to fit your naming conventions.

Additional Optional Overlays

Demographics

You can refine your targeting parameters by toggling on Demographics and filtering across four primary criteria:

Genders: All | Male | Female | Unknown
Age Ranges: All | 18–24 | 25–34 | 35–44 | 45–54 | 55–64 | 65+ | Unknown
Household Income ($): All | Under $50k | $50k–$100k | $100k–$150k | $150k–$200k | $200k+
Alcohol Age Verification: Deliver ads strictly to ages 21+

Exclude Audience

Under Hide Advanced Options at the bottom of the builder page, there is an option to Exclude audiences, allowing you to negatively target specific cohorts you do not want to see your ad.

Troubleshooting & FAQs

Is geofencing and geotargeting the same thing?
Yes, conceptually. However, to remain inclusive and accurately cover both real-time proximity and historical intent, the GroundTruth Ads Manager platform refers to this tactic collectively as Location Targeting.
Where do I configure my Retargeting windows and specific rules?
The retargeting ad group automatically builds once the toggle is enabled. You’ll see it created directly on your campaign dashboard and will have the opportunity to click back into it to adjust individual parameters before launching.
What happens if I don't select any of the optional targeting methods?
If you leave the optional targeting methods blank, the ad group will run as a Pure Geographic campaign. Your ads will be delivered to anyone who enters or is within your defined Target Locations boundary, without filtering for specific behaviors, lookalikes, or real-time proximity.
Why can’t I select both "Target by Audience" and "Target On-Premise" in the same ad group?
These methods use fundamentally different delivery logic. Target by Audience relies on behavioral profiles layered over an area, whereas Target On-Premise looks for real-time mobile signals in a live physical area. To use both strategies, create your initial ad group with one method, then clone it to a new ad group at the end of the setup flow to apply the other.
Can I upload custom latitude and longitude coordinates in bulk for location targeting?
Yes. By using the Upload in Bulk option, you can download our standard CSV template, fill out a mass list of specific Lat/Long coordinates or street addresses, and upload them all at once to generate your target locations instantly.
What does the "Unknown" category mean under Genders and Age Ranges?
The "Unknown" designation includes users whose demographic data cannot be verified with absolute certainty by our partner/provider networks.
- Best Practice: If you filter by a specific demographic group (e.g., Female), it is highly recommended to keep "Unknown" checked as well so you don't inadvertently block a vast pool of potential inventory.
Does enabling Retargeting automatically double my campaign spending?
No. The system protects your budget by enforcing a built-in 20% budget cap protection on the newly generated retargeting ad group. This means it automatically carves out a small fraction of your primary ad group's spend rather than executing an entirely separate, uncapped budget request.