Why Are My Facebook Leads Coming From 20 Miles Away?

Meta no longer lets advertisers show ads only to people who live in an area. Every location you pick in Ads Manager now reaches people living there or recently there, so a school that draws families from a few miles away can end up paying for leads from shoppers, commuters and holidaymakers who will never train. Here is what changed, when, and what owners and their agencies can do about it as of September 2026.

The problem came up on a recent coaching call among martial arts school owners. An account manager at a Meta ads agency that manages campaigns for a number of member schools described the platform as “rocky” for the past five or six months, and singled out location targeting. “They used to target people living in an area,” he said. “They changed it over to living in, or recently traveled to. Anyone coming in on holiday has their cell phone pinging off a local tower and all of a sudden you’re getting people from outside your state or outside your radius.” For one school, in an affluent suburb of a dense West Coast metro, he called it “probably the final nail in the coffin” for its Facebook campaign.

What changed in Facebook’s location targeting?

Meta removed the choice between residents and visitors. Until April 2023, Ads Manager offered four location options: people living in or recently in a location, people living in the location, people recently in the location, and people travelling in the location. Meta removed the last three, leaving only “people living in or recently in this location”.

Jon Loomer, a Meta advertising consultant whose guides are widely used in the trade, reported the change on 28 April 2023 and quoted Meta’s in-product notice that “the other options have been removed, so you won’t have to select a type of location targeting.” The agency 44i described the same change on 3 July 2023. Meta did not publish a press release explaining it.

The wording has since shifted again. As of March 2026, Loomer’s 2026 targeting guide quotes Meta describing location targeting as reaching “people who spend time in locations, such as people living there or recently there.” 511 Digital Marketing, writing on 28 March 2026, noted that “such as” turns residents and recent visitors into examples rather than a complete definition, and said it was not yet confirmed whether that reflects a functional change or only new wording. We could not confirm it either.

There is a second setting that can widen reach further. Loomer reported in September 2024 that when you select a city or region, Ads Manager may show a checkbox to “reach more people likely to respond”, which Meta says shows ads to “people interested in your selected cities and regions, for example people showing intent to travel to these locations or make purchases there.” Loomer found it is ticked by default for some objectives and can be unticked.

Why does this hurt martial arts schools more than most advertisers?

Because a school’s catchment is small and the ad’s catchment is not. Stephen Oliver, a 10th Degree Black Belt and the publisher of this journal, told the call that schools typically draw from a 3-7 mile radius. In a dense metro, he said, leads now arrive from people who were driving through or shopping in the area and live 20 miles away, “which is not helpful.”

A family will not drive 40 minutes each way, three nights a week, for a children’s programme. A restaurant or a hotel can use a passing visitor; a school cannot. The areas where this bites hardest are the ones where many phones pass through without living there:

• schools near shopping centres, retail parks or busy high streets
• schools on commuter corridors, near stations or major employers
• schools in tourist, beach or holiday areas
• schools in small, affluent enclaves surrounded by a much larger metro, where even a tight radius sits on top of heavy through-traffic

The agency account manager also said Facebook increasingly skews older, and that Instagram is where the agency now reaches younger millennial and Gen Z parents, with more emphasis on parents with after-school interests.

Can I still target only people who live near my school?

No. As of September 2026 there is no “people living in this location” option in Meta Ads Manager. Some third-party guides still recommend choosing it; one published in September 2026 does. That advice is out of date, and it disagrees with Loomer’s 2023 and 2026 reporting and with 44i’s. If an agency tells you it has set your ads to residents only, ask it to show you the setting.

What you can still control, according to third-party guides published between 2024 and 2026, is the size and shape of the area: a radius around a dropped pin or address (reported minimum one mile in the US), ZIP or postal codes, cities and regions, and excluded locations. Check the options in your own Ads Manager, because Meta changes the interface often and we could not read Meta’s own help-centre pages directly.

What can owners and agencies do about out-of-area leads?

You cannot stop visitors seeing the ad, so the aim is to show it to fewer of them, discourage the ones who do see it, and catch the rest before a coach spends time on them.

1. Tighten the map. Replace city-wide or wide-radius targeting with a pin on your school and a radius that matches where your members actually live, or with the ZIP codes they come from. Pull members’ addresses from your software first and draw the area from the data, not from instinct. Watch the estimated audience size: very small areas can struggle to deliver and cost more per impression.

2. Untick location expansion. If the “reach more people likely to respond” box appears on your ad set, check whether it is ticked. For a school, it has no obvious upside.

3. Exclude the places that send you bad leads. Meta lets you exclude locations. Exclude the shopping district, the neighbouring town across the bridge, or the ZIP codes that keep producing no-shows. Guides describe exclusions as probabilistic rather than absolute, so treat them as a reduction, not a wall.

4. Put the location in the ad. Name the neighbourhood in the headline or first line, and show the building or a street people recognise. Someone 20 miles away who reads “Kids’ classes on Main Street, Anytown” is less likely to enquire.

5. Ask where people live before they book. On a landing page, ask for a ZIP code or ask them to pick their neighbourhood from a list, and show a map and the address. Meta’s instant forms support custom questions, including multiple-choice and short-answer questions, and a “Higher Intent” form type that adds a review step before submission. The agency on the call prefers sending traffic to its own landing pages, because it finds instant-form leads lower intent.

6. Check geography in the CRM. Have your software or your front desk flag any lead whose ZIP code sits outside your catchment, and route those leads to an email rather than a coach’s phone call.

7. Measure leads by distance. Each month, count what share of leads came from inside your catchment and work out cost per in-area lead. Ask your agency to report the same. A campaign at $30 per lead with 90% local is cheaper than one at $20 with 50% local.

8. Build audiences from people you know are local. Meta Custom Audiences can be built from customer lists, website visitors and people who engaged with your page. Contacts collected at school fairs, community events and buddy days, with their permission, are by definition local. The agency on the call has added its own retargeting layer alongside prospecting campaigns for this kind of reason.

9. Keep the rest of the targeting simple. The account manager said the agency is “reeling back” detailed targeting: “When you give Meta too much to work with, it just confuses itself.” Loomer’s 2026 guidance points the same way.

Can you still target by income on Facebook?

Only roughly, and the options have been shrinking. Oliver told the call that income targeting has “gone kind of sideways” recently. The record is less clear-cut than a single removal.

Facebook removed its Partner Categories on 28 March 2018. These were third-party data from brokers such as Experian and Acxiom, which had been used for income and purchasing targeting. In February 2019, MarTech reported a replacement: US household-income tiers (top 5%, top 10%, top 10-25%, top 25-50%) based on average income in the ZIP code where a user says they live. That is a neighbourhood average, not the person’s income. A guide updated in July 2026 still describes these tiers as available mainly in the US. We could not find a Meta announcement that they have been removed, and we could not confirm Oliver’s observation independently.

What Meta has removed is a lot of detailed targeting around those tiers. Detailed targeting exclusions left new ad sets on 31 March 2025. In August 2025, Social Media Today and MediaPost reported that Meta was consolidating more detailed targeting options, and that from 15 January 2026, ad sets still using removed options would stop delivering. Neither report listed which options went. For schools in affluent areas, the practical alternative is the same as for location: draw your target area around the ZIP codes your best members come from.

Frequently asked questions

Why are my Facebook ads reaching people outside my area?

Since April 2023 Meta has targeted people living in or recently in a location, so visitors, shoppers and commuters who pass through your area can see your ads. A location expansion checkbox, if ticked, can widen reach further.

Can I target only residents on Facebook in 2026?

No. Meta removed the “people living in this location” option in April 2023. You can control the area with a pin radius, ZIP codes and exclusions, but not whether someone lives there or was just visiting.

What radius should a martial arts school use for Facebook ads?

Start from where your members actually live. Stephen Oliver says most schools draw from 3 to 7 miles. Map your members’ ZIP codes and target those areas rather than picking a round number.

Do location exclusions stop out-of-area leads completely?

No. Exclusions reduce delivery to excluded areas but are not absolute. Use them alongside a location question on your form and a ZIP code check in your CRM.

Can I still target Facebook ads by income?

In the US, third-party guides say household-income tiers based on ZIP code averages still exist, but they are neighbourhood averages rather than individual income. Meta has removed and consolidated many other detailed targeting options since 2025.