Understanding ad reach

To begin with, reach is an estimate of the number of users which are residing in a selected location target, based on the cookies. With the reach number, you are able to attain a slight idea of how many users your AdWords could potentially reach in a specific geographic area. For example, you can easily estimate  how many customers will see you ads in Chicago versus in Michigan. With this, you will be able obtain details on the reach level of each area and eventually decide if you have targeted the right area. When selecting a location to target in AdWords, the locations estimated reach can be found in the reach column. This is seen below:

Reach in AdWords is generated through the estimation of numbers that were seen on Google properties within the indicated geographic area. This is mainly the reason behind why reach numbers in AdWords may differ extensively from census population numbers. The following factors play a crucial role in estimating reach numbers:

• Number of devices
• Number of web browsers
• Number of temporary visits
• Length of time
• Cookies
• Search partner or Google display network