TLDR;
- Don't use the default "All countries and territories" blindly: Without safeguards, 90% of your budget will flow to low-cost, low-intent regions, draining your funds before you reach premium buyers.
- Use a Tiered Campaign Structure: Split your campaigns by economic power (Tier 1: US/UK/EU vs. Tier 2 & 3). This allows you to bid appropriately for high-value users without overpaying for volume.
- Language is your best filter: In non-English speaking markets, targeting English language settings acts as a powerful quality filter for B2B and software products.
- Bidding Strategy Matters: Avoid "Maximize Clicks" on global campaigns. Use Manual CPC or Target CPA to control costs, otherwise, Google will simply buy the cheapest traffic available globally.
- Assets included: I've included a Global Blended ROAS Calculator and a Tiered Budget visualizer below to help you plan your spend.
Running a Google Ads campaign with "no location specified" feels a bit like standing on a rooftop and throwing flyers into the wind. You know they are landing somewhere, but you have no idea if they are being picked up by a CEO in London or washed into a gutter in a village where no one can afford your product. The interface on Google makes it temptingly easy. Just one click: "All countries and territories". It sounds massive. It sounds like scale. It sounds like the dream of being a "global business".
But here is the brutal reality I've seen in account after account: if you select that option without a rigorous strategy, you aren't targeting the world. You are targeting the cheapest clicks the world has to offer.
I recall a Medical Job Matching SaaS that came to us with a Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) of £100. They were spending significantly but not efficiently. By restructuring their targeting and implementing the strategies I'm about to share, we reduced that CPA to just £7. Without a rigorous strategy, you risk draining your funds on low-quality clicks rather than acquiring valuable users.
However, being afraid of global targeting is also a mistake. We have scaled apps to 45k+ signups and helped B2B software companies find clients in global markets efficiently. The trick isn't to avoid the global market; it's to structure it so you don't go broke. If you are struggling with the fear of wasted spend, you might want to look at the The Tiered Global PPC Blueprint: Stop Wasting Ad Spend which breaks down the foundational logic of what I'm about to discuss.
The "Cheap Traffic" Trap and How Google's Algorithm Works
To understand why "no location" is dangerous, you have to understand Google's motivation. Google wants to sell ad inventory. It has premium inventory (a lawyer searching in New York) that costs $50 a click. It also has surplus inventory (someone playing a game in a low-GDP region) that costs $0.05 a click.
When you set your targeting to "Global" and your bidding strategy to something loose like "Maximize Clicks" or even "Maximize Conversions" without a strict target cost, the algorithm looks for the path of least resistance. It asks: "Where can I get a result for the lowest price?"
The answer is almost always a developing nation with a large population and lower advertising competition. Your budget will flow like water downhill. It will flood into low-cost regions, leaving nothing for the high-cost, high-value regions like the UK, USA, or Germany. You think you are running a global campaign, but you are actually running a "Low Cost Country" campaign.
This is why simply removing boundaries causes inefficient spending. It's not that the people in those countries aren't real; it's that the economic probability of them buying a $100 software subscription or a £500 consulting package is statistically lower, yet they consume the budget faster due to sheer volume.
The Solution: The Tiered Country Structure
You don't run one global campaign. You run multiple campaigns that cover the globe, but grouped by "Economic Tiers". This is the single most effective way to control efficiency. It forces Google to spend money in expensive countries because that money is ring-fenced in its own campaign.
I usually break it down like this:
Tier 1: High Competition, High Value
This includes the USA, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Sometimes I'll add wealthy European nations like Germany, Sweden, and Netherlands here, or I'll break them into a "Tier 1 EU".
Strategy: High bids, strict budget control. You expect a high CPC here (maybe £2-£10 depending on niche). If you grouped these with India or Brazil, your ads would never show here because the algorithm would prefer the cheaper clicks elsewhere.
Tier 2: The "Value" Pocket
This is where the magic happens. Countries like Singapore, UAE, South Korea, Japan, parts of the EU (France, Italy, Spain), and perhaps wealthy pockets in South America or Africa.
Strategy: Moderate bids. These markets often have high purchasing power but significantly lower advertising competition than the US/UK. You can often get conversions here for 30-40% less than in Tier 1.
Tier 3: Volume and Discovery
The rest of the world (excluding sanctioned or high-risk zones).
Strategy: Low bids. Very strict CPA targets. This is where you let the "no location" settings run wild, but with a capped budget. You might allocate only 10% of your total spend here to "mine for gold" without risking the farm.
By splitting your campaigns this way, you ensure that your budget for the UK isn't eaten up by clicks from a region with 1/10th the purchasing power. If you want a deeper dive on how we structure this specifically for software, check out our case study on Solved: Google Ads App Install Costs for Global Rollout.
Budget Distribution Risk: Single Campaign vs. Tiered
Language: The Great Filter
One of the most overlooked settings in global campaigns is language. If you are selling a B2B SaaS tool in English, targeting "All countries" can be risky. However, targeting "All countries" AND filtering for "English Language" users is a brilliant strategy.
In many non-English speaking countries, the people who have their browser or Google interface set to "English" are often the expat community, international business people, or the highly educated tech demographic. By simply adding the language constraint, you filter out a massive chunk of irrelevant traffic.
For example, we worked with a software client where we utilized precise targeting on Google Ads to generate 3,543 users at a cost of just £0.96 per user. By ensuring we were only reaching relevant users—often using language and intent signals—we avoided wasting budget on segments that were unlikely to convert.
If you are worried about the technical setup of this, I've written a bit more about the nuances in our guide on paid ads without location targeting: the complete guide.
Bidding Strategies for the World
Your choice of bidding strategy is the throttle for your global engine.
Manual CPC (Enhanced): If you are just starting and don't have conversion data, this is your safest bet. It prevents Google from spending £5.00 on a click in a region where the average is £0.20 just because it "thinks" it might convert. You set the ceiling.
Target CPA (tCPA): Once you have data (30+ conversions), tCPA is incredibly powerful for global campaigns. Why? Because it normalizes the risk. You can tell Google: "I don't care where the lead comes from, as long as it costs £20."
If a lead in India costs £5 and a lead in the US costs £50, Google will try to find the mix that meets your average. However, be careful—it might still just max out on the cheap leads to hit the target. If you need US customers specifically, tCPA on a blended global campaign will fail you. You must use the Tiered structure mentioned above.
The "Negative Location" List
Even if you target "All countries", you should explicitly exclude certain regions. This is non-negotiable for account hygiene.
There are countries where bot traffic is historically higher, or where payment gateways often fail due to sanctions or banking infrastructure. I usually have a standard "Global Exclusion List" that I apply to every account. It includes sanctioned countries (obviously) but also regions where we've historically seen 99% bounce rates.
Don't be afraid to be ruthless here. If you are selling a luxury product, you can safely exclude the bottom 50% of countries by GDP per capita. It sounds harsh, but advertising is about probability, not philanthropy. You can see more on how to optimize this in our article on optimizing ad account structure for global traffic.
Currency and Payment Realities
One practical issue with global ads that people forget is the landing page experience. If a user clicks your ad in Japan, and they land on a page pricing in British Pounds (£) or US Dollars ($), your conversion rate will drop.
If you are truly going global, you need dynamic currency conversion on your site, or at least a currency switcher. If you can't support that, be aware that your CPA in those regions will be artificially high because of the friction at checkout.
Calculating Blended ROAS
When you run tiered campaigns, your reporting gets a bit more complex. You might have a ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) of 2.0 in Tier 1 and 6.0 in Tier 3. Your boss or client wants to know the "Global ROAS".
It's important to understand how these mix. A high ROAS in Tier 3 might look good on paper, but if the volume of revenue is low, it doesn't pay the bills. Conversely, a lower ROAS in Tier 1 might drive the bulk of your absolute profit.
The "Search Intent" Safety Net
My final piece of advice on this is about Keywords. If you target "All countries", your keywords must be incredibly tight. You cannot run Broad Match keywords like "marketing" in a global campaign. You will generate millions of impressions from people searching for "marketing jobs", "marketing definition", or "marketing images" in every corner of the globe.
You must use specific, high-intent keywords. Phrases like "hire marketing agency for SaaS" or "enterprise marketing software pricing". The specificity of the keyword acts as a secondary filter. Even if someone in a village in a remote area searches for it, if they type that specific phrase, they are likely a relevant user.
Combining High Intent Keywords + English Language Setting + Tiered Country Structure is the holy trinity of safe global scaling. If you miss one, the tripod falls over.
Summary of Recommendations
Don't let the fear of inefficient spending paralyze you. The global market is huge and full of opportunity, but you have to respect the differences in economic terrain. You wouldn't wear flip-flops to climb Everest, and you shouldn't use "Maximize Clicks" for a global rollout.
I've detailed my main recommendations for you below:
| Feature | Recommendation | Why? |
|---|---|---|
| Location Settings | Split into Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3 campaigns. | Prevents budget drain to low-cost countries; ensures visibility in high-value markets. |
| Language | Target "English" (or your service language) globally. | Filters for educated/business class users in non-native regions. |
| Bidding | Manual CPC (start) -> tCPA (later). | Manual CPC caps your risk per click. tCPA works great once you have conversion data. |
| Keywords | Phrase/Exact Match only. High Intent. | Broad match on global settings is too loose and attracts low-quality traffic. |
| Exclusions | Sanctioned countries + High Bot/Fraud zones. | Basic account hygiene to prevent wasted spend on invalid traffic. |
It can be a lot to manage, especially when you start dealing with timezones, currencies, and cultural nuances in ad copy. If you're looking at your current setup and feeling a bit overwhelmed, or if you've already launched and are seeing weird traffic patterns you can't explain, it might be worth getting a second pair of eyes on it. We offer a free initial consultation where we can look at your geo-reports together and spot where the leaks are.
Hope this helps!
