Specify Microsoft Advertising location targets via bulksheet

Set geographic location targets and bid adjustments

Microsoft Advertising geographic location targeting enables you to target prospective customers in the geographic locations you support.

To view or change other targeting settings, such as targeting by hours or gender, you’ll need to use Microsoft Advertising.

Specify Microsoft Advertising location targets in a bulksheet

Download the list of Microsoft Advertising geo codes: XLSX / CSV
Navigate to a Microsoft Advertising account.

We recommend that you set at least one location target using the Search Ads 360 user interface before you download a bulksheet to add location targets.
Click the Campaigns or Ad groups tab.

Optionally, you can navigate to the Campaign Location targets, Ad group location targets, or Excluded tab to download location targets, but the Campaign and Ad group columns will contain the names of campaigns and ad groups that already include location targets. You will need to manually enter the names of campaigns and ad groups that you want to set location targets for.
Do either of the following to select the items that you want to update:
- Select the check boxes of the campaigns or ad groups.
- Filter the list to include only the campaigns or ad groups that you want.
Download a report.
1. Click the download icon , which appears above the reporting table.
2. On the Download report tab, do the following:
  - Report name. Enter a report name or use the default name.
  - Scope. Use the default selection which is either Current selection in table or Current scope.
  - Format. Click the arrow and select a file format. Excel 2007 (.xlsx) is selected by default.
  - Columns. Don't change the default option which is Editable columns (for re-upload).
  - Include types:
    - Clear the Campaigns or Ad groups check box.
      
      If you include campaigns and ad groups in the bulksheet, it will include location columns for Country, Region, Metro, and City. In the Country column you could see, US | CA;-90% in a campaign that targets the United States, and decreases bids by 90% to target Canada.
      
      While you can specify location targets and bid adjustments in the columns of a campaign row, we recommend using location target rows instead because you can enter all location types in the Location column.
    - Select any of the following location target check boxes:
      - Campaign location targets
      - Negative campaign location targets
      - Ad group location targets
      - Negative ad group location targets
3. Optional. Select other options that you want.
4. Click Download.
In the bulksheet, specify location target settings in the appropriate columns:
1. Add a location target row (copy an existing location target row to a new row) for each positive or negative location target or edit existing location target rows.
  For example, to target Indiana and Denmark with a campaign named, Campcar, you'd enter US-IN in one location target row, and enter DK in a different location target row.
2. Optional. In the Location bid adjustment % column for positive location targets, enter a percent to adjust the default bid.
Upload the bulksheet back into Search Ads 360.

Bulksheet columns for Microsoft Advertising location targets

Column name	Description
Row Type	To create or edit a location target, enter the following text: Campaigns: `location target` `negative location target` Ad groups: `ad group location target` `ad group negative location target`
Action	Enter `create` to add a location target. Enter `edit` to change the status of a location target or change a bid adjustment. Enter `deactivate` to remove a location target and bid adjustment. To view metrics for removed location targets, you'll need to display removed items in the reporting table.
Campaign	Enter a campaign name.
Location	Enter a geo code. For areas in the US, you can also enter a 5-digit ZIP code. For Germany and India, you can enter a 5-digit postal code. The UK's 5-digit postal codes aren't supported.
Location bid adjustment %	Enter a percent from -90% to 900%. Applicable only for positive location targets.
Ad group	Enter an ad group name.
Advertiser	Enter an advertiser name.
Account	Enter an account name.

Example

In the following example, the campaign named Camp1 displays ads in the United States state of Kansas. Ads in Adgroup1 aren't displayed in the city of Altamont, Kansas.

Row Type	Action	Campaign	Location	Location bid adjustment %	Ad group
`location target`	edit	Camp1	US-KS	20%
`ad group negative location target`	edit	Camp1	Altamont, US-KS, US		Adgroup1

Other Microsoft Advertising location target columns that appear in a downloaded report

If you download Microsoft Advertising campaigns and ad groups in a bulksheet, the following bulksheet columns also display location targets for Microsoft Advertising campaigns and ad groups. You can specify location targets in the columns, but we recommend using location target rows and columns instead.

Country
Region
Metro
City
Excluded country
Excluded region
Excluded metro
Excluded city

To view or change other targeting settings, such as targeting by hours or gender, you’ll need to use Microsoft Advertising. (You can remove the other targeting settings from Search Ads 360 by entering remove_content in the Non-managed column, but you can't add or change these settings from Search Ads 360.)

You can change the values in these location-targeting columns to the following:

empty
When you edit an existing campaign or ad group and leave a column empty, Search Ads 360 keeps the current settings as is (that is, an empty value means “do not change”).

When you create a new campaign and leave these columns empty, the campaign will target all locations, which is the same as specifying World.

A list of geo codes, and postal codes each separated by | (vertical bar)
(Not applicable to the Radius or Postal code columns.) Specifies location targets to include or exclude. Be sure to specify country geo codes in the Country column or Excluded country, region codes in the Region column or Excluded region column, and so on.
If you specify a geo code in any of these location-targeting columns for an ad group, the ad group will no longer inherit any location targeting from the campaign. You’ll also need to remove (inherited) from the rest of the location columns. For example, an ad group cannot override metro and city targets and inherit country and region targets.

Note that if you specify location targets in either a campaign or an ad group, Microsoft Advertising requires you to specify at least one location to include. That is, you can’t specify only excluded locations in a campaign or ad group.

For example, to target all of Massachusetts except for the Boston metro area, enter:

Region	Metro	Effective metro	City
US-MA		Boston, MA-Manchester, NH, MA US

remove_content
Removes any previously specified target from the column. For example, if you specify remove_content in the Country column, the campaign or ad group will no longer target countries.

If you delete the geo codes from all four of an ad group’s location columns, the ad group will inherit location targeting from the campaign.
(inherited)
For ad groups only. Indicates that the ad group is inheriting its location targets from its campaign.

If you change the value in this column to (inherited), Search Ads 360 returns the ad group to inheriting from the campaign. Either all of an ad group’s location-targeting columns must specify (inherited) or none can specify it. For example, an ad group cannot inherit country and region targets and override metro and city targets.

Note that an ad group cannot override a campaign’s location targeting and target World. The only way an ad group can target World (which means all locations) is if the campaign targets World and the ad group inherits location targeting from the campaign.

Radius targets

While Microsoft Advertising supports radius targeting, you cannot add or modify radius targeting from Search Ads 360. If you create or edit a campaign or ad group from Microsoft Advertising, specify radius targeting in Microsoft Advertising, and sync with Search Ads 360, you’ll see the following in the Radius column:
Exists

If the Radius column specifies Exists, you can specify remove_content to remove the radius targets or (inherited) to return an ad group to inheriting from the campaign. Note that either all of an ad group’s location-targeting columns must specify (inherited) or none can specify it.

Effective columns

Each targeting column in a bulksheet is accompanied by a read-only effective column. These columns display the targeting that is currently in effect for each campaign and ad group.

If an ad group is inheriting targeting from the campaign, the ad group’s effective columns will display the value that’s being inherited.

For example, the Country column is accompanied by the Effective country column. If an ad group is inheriting location targets from a campaign, and if the campaign is targeting US and CA, the ad group’s Country and Effective country columns contain the following:

Country	Effective country
(inherited)	US \| CA

If the ad group specifies its own targeting, such as MX, the columns contain the following:

Country	Effective country
MX	MX

Non-managed columns

Bulksheets for Microsoft Advertising ad groups use the Non-managed and Effective non-managed columns to indicate if the other targeting settings—the ones that can’t be set or viewed from Search Ads 360—have been specified in Microsoft Advertising.

The Non-managed column can contain one of the following values:

empty
If none of the other targeting settings have been specified in Microsoft Advertising, this column is empty.
Exists
One or more of the other targeting settings have been specified in Microsoft Advertising for the campaign or ad group.
remove_content
Removes all non-managed settings.

If you specify remove_content for an ad group, the ad group will inherit the settings from the campaign.
(inherited)
For ad groups only. Indicates that the ad group is inheriting its location targets from its campaign.

If you change the value in this column from Exists to (inherited), Search Ads 360 removes all non-managed settings from the ad group and causes the ad group to inherit the settings from the campaign.

The Effective non-managed column can contain one of the following values:

empty
If none of the other targeting settings have been specified in Microsoft Advertising, this column is empty.
Exists
One or more of the other targeting settings have been specified in Microsoft Advertising, either at the campaign level or the ad group level.

Examples

Override campaign’s location-targeting settings

Let’s say a campaign targets the entire US, but you want one of your ad groups to target only the Boston metro area and the cities of Springfield and Taunton. Here’s how to update the ad group via bulksheet:

In the Search Ads 360 UI, download an editiable report that contains the ad group.
When you open the downloaded bulksheet, the location-targeting columns look like this:

Country	Effective country	Region	Effective region	Metro	Effective metro	City	Effective city
(inherited)	US	(inherited)		(inherited)		(inherited)

Update the location-targeting columns as follows:

Country	Region	Metro	City
		Boston, MA-Manchester, NH, MA US	Springfield, Springfield-Holyoke, MA MA US \| Taunton, Providence, RI-New Bedford, MA MA US

Note that you need to delete the value from Country and Region columns and leave them empty. Because you're overriding the campaign's location targeting, you can't specify (inherited) in any of the location targeting columns.

Upload the bulksheet.

Stop targeting cities

Continuing from the previous example, to continue targeting the Boston metro area and stop targeting the cities of Springfield and Taunton, update the location-targeting columns as follows:

Country	Region	Metro	City
			remove_content

In the Metro column, you could either leave the current value (Boston, MA-Manchester, NH, MA), or leave the column empty. An empty column means: "don't change this column."

Return to inheriting campaign settings

Continuing from the previous example, to return the ad group to inheriting location-targeting from the campaign again, update the location-targeting columns as follows:

Country	Region	Metro	City
		remove_content

Because you already deleted the value from the City column, Metro was the only column remaining with a specified value. Deleting the content from the Metro column causes the ad group to inherit all targeting settings.

As an alternative to specifying remove_content in the Metro column, you could instead specify (inherited) in all four of the location columns.

Country	Region	Metro	City
(inherited)	(inherited)	(inherited)	(inherited)

This would also cause the ad group to inherit its location targets from its campaign. Note that you need to specify (inherited) in all four columns to return to inheriting a campaign's location-targeting settings.

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