Every franchise agreement has a territory in it. Some draw it as a list of ZIP codes, some as a count of households, some as a line on a map with a protected area inside. The owner paid for it, and for many owners it's the first thing they can describe about their business.
Google Ads has never seen it. There's no field for a franchise territory, no territory import, and no setting that knows two locations belong to the same brand. Whatever the agreement says, the campaign only covers what someone types into its location settings. This chapter covers how to draw a territory in Google Ads, what happens where two territories meet, which settings quietly spend outside the lines, and what the agreement itself may say about who gets to advertise online at all. The ZIP code example comes from one example market, Orlando. Your territories will be drawn differently. The settings work the same way everywhere.
Google Has No Map of a Franchise's Territories. Every Location's Campaign Has to Draw Its Own.
Google lets a campaign target a country, an area within it or a radius around a point. In Google's words, "Depending on the country, you can target regions, cities, or postal codes." In the United States, that means ZIP codes.
That's the unit to use. One PPC agency that writes about franchise accounts put the problem plainly: "Your franchise agreement has a map. Google does not have that map, and no setting imports it." The same agency's fix: target ZIP codes and cities, because "territory agreements are usually written in the same units." A radius is quicker to set up. It's also a circle, and territories are almost never circles.
So each location's campaign gets its territory typed in, ZIP code by ZIP code, straight from the agreement. Google's bulk location tool takes a pasted list, up to 1,000 locations at a time, so a long territory doesn't have to be entered one ZIP code at a time. Google allows 10,500 location targets per campaign, counting both the places targeted and the places excluded, which is room enough for any single territory.
In a system with more than a handful of locations, that list belongs in one shared file the franchisor keeps: every location, every ZIP code it owns, and the date it was last checked against the agreements. When a new location opens or a territory is redrawn, the file changes first and the campaigns follow. In our experience, most territory fights in Google Ads start with two people working from two different lists.
Two Clinics in the Same Franchise Sit 12 Miles Apart. With 15-Mile Radius Targeting, the Franchise Would Outbid Itself in 7 ZIP Codes.
Here is what a radius does to two locations of one brand. We took two chiropractic clinics of the same franchise in the example market, one in Ocoee and one in Clermont. Measured address to address, they sit about 12 miles apart.
Now imagine each clinic got a 15-mile radius. Counting only regular residential ZIP codes, the Ocoee circle takes in 37 and the Clermont circle 12. Seven fall inside both, and two of those seven are the clinics' own home ZIP codes: when two locations sit closer together than their radius, each circle swallows the other's front door. Shrink both circles to 10 miles and 2 ZIP codes still overlap. Our count measures to the center of each ZIP code, so it's approximate. The overlap isn't.
If each clinic ran its own 15-mile radius, both would be bidding on searchers in those seven ZIP codes. Chapter 6 covered why that matters most for near-me searches, which carry no town name, so the searcher's location does most of the work. When the two locations have different owners in separate accounts, that means two owners of one brand paying to compete for one customer.
When Two Locations Want the Same ZIP Code, One Owns It in Writing and Pays for Every Click There.
The fix is a rule, written down before the campaigns launch. The same practitioner's version: "assign each shared zip code to exactly one owner in writing," and "Whoever owns the zip code funds it. Not both." For tie-breaks, they offer two options: the nearest location wins, or the territory the address falls in wins.
Once each overlap ZIP code has one owner, the campaigns follow. The owner's campaign targets it. The neighbor's campaign excludes it. Google applies an exclusion only to people it thinks are likely located in the excluded ZIP codes, not to people who are merely interested in them, so the neighbor's ads mostly stop showing to people there. Google is clear that location signals vary and 100% accuracy isn't guaranteed.
Calls and leads follow the same rule. A caller from a ZIP code that belongs to the neighbor goes to the neighbor, as Chapter 6 described. Write the list, the tie-break and the routing in one place, and have every owner involved sign off on it. It settles the argument before it starts.
Google's Default Location Setting Shows Ads to People Who Just Looked Up Your Area. A Franchisee Should Only Pay for People Inside the Territory.
A new campaign's location option is set to what Google calls "Presence or Interest" unless someone changes it. That setting counts two groups: people physically in the area or there often, and people elsewhere who have shown an interest in the area. Google recommends it as a best practice for Search.
Google also says when not to use it. Its own page says to consider the narrower option, "Presence," when "You only want to target users in specific locations and not users who may be in other locations but are still interested in your product or service." That's close to the franchise case.
Presence isn't a fence. It covers people "in or regularly in" the area, so someone who lives elsewhere but works in the territory can see the ad. And Google calls location targeting a best effort. But Presence stops the campaign from deliberately reaching people whose only link to the territory is an interest in it, and that's the leak a franchisee is paying to avoid.
Search Partners and the Display Network Stay Off at Launch. Nothing Else Turns On Until the Search Campaign Pays for Itself.
Two more settings can be switched on in a new Search campaign, and both stay off at launch.
Search partners extend a campaign's ads, in Google's words, "to hundreds of non-Google websites, as well as YouTube." Display Expansion lets a Search campaign's budget run as display ads across Google's Display Network. Google has started moving Display Expansion into a newer set of controls it calls channel prioritization, and says Search campaigns with Display Expansion will transition automatically starting in February 2027. Whatever the menu looks like when you build, check the campaign's networks and the account-level channel defaults behind them, and make sure the Display Network isn't turned on.
Neither setting is bad forever. Both send a new location's limited budget to places where its results are harder to read, before Google Search itself has shown what a customer costs. AI Max stays off in the first campaign too: one of its options, locations of interest at the ad group level, can reach people outside the territory, as Chapter 6 described. Each one can be tested later, one at a time, once the Search campaign is paying for itself.
Your Franchise Agreement Decides Who Runs Your Google Ads. Find That Clause Before You Spend a Dollar.
Before a franchisee builds anything, the agreement may have already decided who builds it. Of the 21 franchise disclosure documents we read, several reserve online advertising to the franchisor in plain words.
The agreement European Wax Center gives its franchisees says "Franchisor retains the sole right to market on the Internet." Goldfish Swim School's agreement keeps for the franchisor the "sole right to advertise or use the Marks on the Internet, including the use of websites, domain names, uniform resource locators, keywords, linking, search engines." The disclosure documents say the same in summary form. Mathnasium's says the franchisor has "exclusive rights to market on the Internet." The Joint's says that, except for the webpage the franchisor provides, a franchisee may not "utilize the Internet to conduct digital or online advertising." ServiceMaster Restore's says "We will have the sole right to control all aspects of any Digital Marketing."
Others draw the line at the territory itself. The Little Gym's disclosure document says "You may not conduct marketing activities outside of your Protected Area, unless we provide you written consent."
None of this is unusual, and none of it is a reason to skip Google Ads. It decides who runs the campaign, which Chapter 14 covers, and it decides what the territory in the campaign has to match. Read the territory and advertising sections of your own agreement first, and if anything is unclear, ask your franchise attorney before you spend.
The Brand's Own Campaigns Should Exclude Every ZIP Code a Franchisee Already Pays For
There's one more campaign that can wander into a franchisee's territory: the brand's own. A national or regional campaign run from the ad fund often targets the whole country or a whole metro area, which includes every location's ZIP codes.
One multi-location marketing platform said it directly: "The brand should be removing those same zip codes by using negative locations within the geo-targeting of national campaigns to avoid competing for the same keywords and search terms used in local store campaigns." The national campaign covers the places no franchisee serves. Each franchisee's campaign covers its own territory. Nobody's money bids against anybody else's.
Brand-name searches are the exception that needs its own plan, because the brand campaign usually should show for them everywhere. Chapter 15 covers that.
Next: Google Wants Five Locations in One Account for Performance Max Store Goals
With each territory drawn and the settings locked down, Chapter 10 turns to Performance Max: what Google needs before it works for a franchise location, and why a single-store franchisee is in a different position from a franchisor running many.
All sixteen chapters, from tracking and territories to who runs the ads and franchise development, are on the guide's home page.
Every franchise campaign in our Google Ads management launches with its territory typed in ZIP code by ZIP code, Presence only, and search partners and Display off. Own a location? Open your campaign's location settings this week and check two things: the ZIP codes against your agreement, and whether the location option still says "Presence or Interest."
