The short version. Most advertisers copy the same geographic playbook: target the United States, maybe a few rich English-speaking countries, and exclude the places everyone else excludes. That herd behavior creates a quiet opportunity, because the market everyone avoids is often the one with the least competition and the best return.
- In one vertical, Mexico was simultaneously the top geo-arbitrage market (a value index of 1.97, nearly double the baseline) and the most excluded country, blacklisted by 83% of campaigns that used exclusions, in all 7 accounts.
- How global a niche should be is not a matter of taste. The share of spend going to the US swings 7.5x between verticals, from 81% in one to 11% in another.
- Copying another account’s country list is copying its blind spots. Geography is an account-specific decision, not an industry default.
The best country to target is rarely the obvious one. It is the one your competitors have excluded out of habit.
Why everyone targets the same countries
Geographic targeting is where herd behavior is easiest to see. One advertiser excludes a country because they once got junk traffic from it, the next advertiser copies the list, and within a category everyone ends up avoiding the same places. The exclusion becomes folklore, repeated long after anyone checked whether it was true. And because everyone leaves, the auction there gets cheap.
That is the arbitrage. A market that most of your competitors have blacklisted has less bidding pressure, lower costs, and often perfectly real demand. In the corpus, one country made this stark: it carried the highest geo-value index in its vertical, 1.97, while being excluded by 83% of the campaigns that used exclusions at all, across every account in the niche. The advertisers were all avoiding their single best market.
How global your niche should be is a measurable fact
The other mistake is assuming your category is US-centric because most examples you have seen are. It varies enormously. The share of spend that goes to the United States swings 7.5x between verticals: 81% in document-builder tools, 53% in ed-tech, 42% in QR-code tools, down to 11% in one visa-related niche. Some categories are structurally global and some are structurally American, and you cannot tell which yours is by intuition.
If your niche is one of the global ones and you are spending 80% in the US out of habit, you are paying the most competitive prices in the world while cheaper demand sits untouched everywhere else.
Profit Forensics
I examine one week of your Google Ads account and find the money it is losing, or prove it is clean. Signed, either way. For accounts spending $50,000 or more per month.
How to find your own geo-arbitrage
- Question every exclusion. For each country you block, ask whether you have data that it performs badly, or whether you inherited the rule. Test the ones you cannot justify.
- Measure demand where competition is thin. The excluded, low-competition markets are exactly where cost per result can be lowest. Run a small controlled test before you dismiss them.
- Do not copy a competitor’s country list. It encodes their blind spots. Your geographic mix should come from your own conversion data.
Key takeaways
- The most-excluded country in a vertical was also its best arbitrage market (value index 1.97, excluded by 83% of campaigns).
- US share of spend swings 7.5x between verticals (81% to 11%). Some niches are global, some are not.
- Herd exclusions make avoided markets cheap. That is the opportunity.
- Geography is an account-specific decision. Never inherit a competitor’s country list.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best countries to target in Google Ads?
There is no universal list. The best market is often one your competitors have excluded out of habit, because low competition there means lower costs. In one vertical the most-excluded country (blacklisted by 83% of campaigns) was also the highest-value arbitrage market. Test the markets your data does not disqualify.
Should I only target the United States?
Only if your data says so. US share of spend varies 7.5x between categories, from 81% to 11%. Some niches are structurally global. If yours is and you spend most of your budget in the US by default, you are paying the most competitive prices while cheaper demand sits elsewhere.
Is it safe to copy a competitor’s country exclusions?
No. A copied exclusion list encodes the competitor’s blind spots and untested folklore, not your economics. Build your geographic targeting from your own conversion data and question any exclusion you cannot justify with numbers.
Method and sources
Figures come from a forensic analysis of 31 Google Ads accounts across consumer-utility verticals, representing $133M in managed spend, September 2024 to February 2025. The geo-value index compares a market’s return against the account baseline; exclusion share is the fraction of exclusion-bearing campaigns that blacklist a given country. Related reading: how much budget is wasted and why average benchmarks mislead.
