Every local ad platform gives a store a radius. A radius is a circle, and no delivery area is a circle. Amplaro fits targeting to the real service area instead, so less of the budget lands where the store cannot deliver and no franchise partner pays to advertise inside someone else's territory.
Draw five kilometres around a store and you have bought a shape that has nothing to do with the business. It crosses the motorway. It crosses the harbour. It crosses into the territory of the franchise partner two suburbs over, who is now paying to advertise to the same people.
Anyone inside the circle but outside the delivery area is spend with no possible return. On an awkward coastal or riverside site that can be most of the circle.
Overlapping circles put two franchisees in the same auction for the same customer. Both pay more and the network gains nothing.
Franchise agreements define territories carefully. A radius ignores them, and the first complaint lands with head office, not with the platform.
Head office uploads the territory file it already has. Amplaro fits a set of circles to that shape, separately for each ad platform, and the franchise partner just picks "delivery area" instead of "radius" when they order.
Territory files are usually GeoJSON out of the mapping or dispatch system, and they import as a folder rather than one at a time. A network of a few hundred stores is one sitting, not one project. There is more on that on the rollout page.
This is worth saying out loud, because a franchise partner can open Ads Manager and check. Meta accepts a point plus a radius, and will also accept exclusions, so an area can be built up and then carved back into. Google accepts proximity circles and has no way to subtract one area from another, so a Google plan is positive circles only and is always a little rougher. Every string in the product says approximated, never "we target your shape".
Coverage is how much of the delivery area sits inside the ads. Precision is how much of the ad spend lands inside the delivery area. Covering the last awkward corner of an area always means buying some ground outside it, so head office gets a setting that leans towards budget or towards reach. Real fits from Australian territory files, with the store names taken off:
| Delivery area | On Meta | On Google |
|---|---|---|
| 21 km², awkward suburban shape | 8 circles with 6 cut back out. 97% covered, 88.6% of spend inside. | 12 circles. 90.6% covered, 93.6% of spend inside. |
| 7 km², coastal | 4 circles with 1 cut back out. 93.6% covered, 89.5% inside. | 3 circles. 84.4% covered, 93.7% inside. |
| 2.2 km², dense inner city | 1 circle. 93.7% covered, 66.7% inside. | 1 circle. Same story. |
Swipe the table sideways to see the rest.
The last row is the honest one. A small, round, dense area is covered by one circle and the fit is no better than a radius. This technique earns its keep on large and awkward areas, which in most delivery networks is most of them.
A delivery area means we can bring food to you if you are there. Somebody reading about your suburb from another state cannot order, so paying to reach them is waste. Amplaro buys presence, not interest, on every channel and in both targeting modes. On Google that is the presence setting rather than the default presence-or-interest. On Meta it is people whose home is in the area plus people whose device has recently been there.
It sounds like a detail. It is one of the larger levers on wasted local spend, and it is off by default on one of the two platforms.
Delivery area targeting means buying ads against the area a store can actually serve, rather than against a circle drawn around its front door. In a franchise network that area is already defined: it is the territory or trade area in the franchise agreement, and for a delivery brand it is the zone the drivers cover.
A radius is a circle and almost no delivery area is a circle. A five kilometre circle around a store crosses motorways, rivers, harbours and the next franchisee's territory. Every person inside the circle but outside the area is money spent on somebody who cannot order from that store, and in a franchise network it is also money spent inside a territory that belongs to someone else.
No, and any platform that says it does is describing something else. Meta takes a point plus a radius (custom_locations) and will also take exclusions. Google takes proximity circles and cannot subtract one area from another. So the honest description is that we fit a set of circles to the shape and, on Meta, cut a few back out again.
It depends entirely on the shape. A large, awkward suburban zone might land at 97 per cent of the area covered with 88 per cent of spend inside it. A small, round inner-city zone can be covered by a single circle, and then the fit is no better than a radius. Head office sees both numbers per store and per platform before anything runs.
Coverage is how much of the delivery area sits inside the ads. Precision is how much of the ad spend lands inside the delivery area. They pull against each other: covering the last awkward corner of a zone means buying some ground outside it. There is a setting that leans one way or the other, and it sits with head office.
No. Most franchise networks already hold territory files, usually as GeoJSON exported from the mapping or dispatch system. Amplaro imports the whole folder in one go and matches each file to a store by store number, then by name. A national network of a few hundred stores imports in one sitting.
The partner sees their delivery area drawn on a map in the brand's own colour, its size in square kilometres, and a plain note saying the ad platforms only accept circles so the shape is approximated. Circle counts and coverage percentages stay in the head office console, because they are our implementation of a platform limit and not something a partner can act on.
We have not found another franchise marketing platform that fits ads to a store's real delivery area. The usual offer is a radius slider. That is why the page exists.
Territory shape matters most where the area is contractual. Eg: home services and real estate. The rest are on franchise industries.
Wasted spend is the easiest number to move. This is where targeting shows up in the return.
Meta, Google Search and Google Demand Gen, from one order and one budget.
The questions worth asking any franchise marketing platform before you buy one.