Question regarding US geo-targets

[Stephen Howe]

Hi,

When pulling from the GEO_PERFORMANCE_REPORT by Region with constraints:

  IsTargetingLocation IN [true, false]

  AND LocationType = LOCATION_OF_PRESENCE

  AND CountryCriteriaId = 2840

I notice that two regions show up with longer RegionCriteriaIds than the other US states. They are:

9073452 - Silicon Valley

9073451 - San Francisco Bay Area

All the other Regions are US states with 5 character RegionCriteriaIds.

This is slightly odd, but consistent with the geo-targets .csv file. My concern is that both these Regions have the United States as their Parent location (2840), not the state of California (21137).

Questions:

Does this mean that performance for Silicon Valley and San Francisco Bay Area are not included if I pull a report WHERE RegionCriteriaId = 21137?

Furthermore, does this extend to targeting? If I set a campaign to target only the state of California in Google Ads, will the campaign not target the two separate regions: Silicon Valley and San Francisco Bay Area?

[Google Ads API Forum Advisor Prod]

Hi Stephen,

Thank you for reaching out and for bringing that information to my attention. I did some digging and it looks like Silicon Valley has 3 parent locations, United States, California, and San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose CA so that shouldn't be an issue. However, it looks like San Francisco Bay Area only has 1 parent location, United States as you pointed out. I have brought this to my team's attention so please keep an eye on our Developer Blog for information on future releases.

This would mean that San Francisco Bay Area wouldn't show up when you filter by locations in California and would also not be included when you just target the state of California.

Regards,
Mitchell
Google Ads API Team

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[Stephen Howe]

Hi Mitchell, 

Thanks for the prompt reply. I am still a bit unclear about the implications of this.

If I pull a report by RegionCriteriaId, I am returned both Silicon Valley and San Francisco Bay Area as well as California. All of these locations have 'Region' status. Does the row for California include performance from one or both of the Silicon Valley and San Francisco Bay Area regions? In other words, if I want to see the performance of the United States by state, should I 

a) remove the rows with Silicon Valley and San Francisco Bay Area or 

b) add those rows to the California total?

Which option will avoid double counting and align with the total United States performance?

Regarding campaign targeting, your answer suggests that a campaign targeting California will, by inclusion, target Silicon Valley. However, any campaign currently targeting California will not be targeting the San Francisco Bay Area region. Is that correct? Would you call this a bug?

[Google Ads API Forum Advisor Prod]

Hi Stephen,

I would recommend reaching out to the Google Ads Product Team here as they will be more equipped to assist you with these questions. They will be able to tell you if this is the intended behavior and how the metrics are counted for these regions.