Named areas on the map, reused wherever targeting asks about position. Geolocations covers what a point and a radius mean, how a location is matched against a profile, and why some rows cannot be edited.
What a geolocation is
A geolocation is a named circle on the map. It has three parts and nothing more: a title you choose, a point you click, and a radius you type. Everything inside that circle is in the location; everything outside it is not.
The point is a pair of coordinates, latitude and longitude, taken from wherever you clicked. The radius is a distance from that point, in kilometers or miles, and it always describes a circle. There is no way to draw a shape, follow a border, or trace a district, so a location is a good fit for a store, a venue, a campus or a city center, and a poor fit for anything whose outline matters.
The address beside a location is not something you type. When a location is saved, the server looks up the coordinates and stores whatever place name it can resolve for them, which is why an address arrives on its own and changes on its own when you move the point. Coordinates over water or in an unmapped area resolve to nothing, and the Address column shows a dash. That is a missing label, not a missing location.
A location belongs to the project it was created in. It is offered when you target something in that project and nowhere else, so two projects that both need the same city each keep their own copy.
A location is only a definition. It records no traffic, holds no audience, and has no numbers of its own. It becomes useful the moment something else asks a position question with it.
How a location is matched
Nothing is matched against a location until something asks. When a push message is targeted at a location, Countly compares the circle against the last position it has recorded on each profile, and a profile is in the audience when its recorded point falls inside the circle.
The comparison is a straight distance check on a sphere. Countly measures from the profile's point to the location's point and keeps the profile when that distance is no greater than the radius. It does not matter which route lies between them, whether a border sits in the way, or what the place is called. A 15 km radius means 15 km in every direction.
Only one position per profile takes part, the most recent one Countly has. There is no history to match against, so a profile that was inside your circle last week and is elsewhere today is no longer in the audience. Nothing about the match is stored either: the audience is worked out when the message is sent and again on each send of a recurring message.
Several locations on one message widen the audience rather than narrowing it. A message targeted at three cities reaches a profile in any one of them, so locations combine as "or" and never as "and". A profile inside two of your circles is still one recipient.
A profile with no recorded position is in no location at all. It cannot be matched by any circle, however large, because there is nothing to measure from. That is the single most common reason a location that looks correct reaches fewer people than expected, and where a profile's position comes from is worth reading before you conclude the radius is wrong.
Use Cases
Create a location for push targeting
A push message should only reach people near a particular place, so the place needs to exist as a location first.
- Open Geolocations from the Manage menu, and check that the project named in Scope is the one the message will be sent from.
- Press New location.
- Give it a title you will recognize in a picker months from now. Name the place, not the campaign, because one location serves every message that needs it.
- Type the radius and pick kilometers or miles. The companion figure beside the field shows the same distance in both units, so a radius entered in miles is easy to sanity check.
- Click the point on the map. Zoom in first: at a world view a click lands tens of kilometers from where you meant, and the circle drawn around the point shows the radius to scale so you can see what it covers.
- Press Create location, then open the push editor, turn on Target by geolocation and pick the location from the list.
If the address that comes back names somewhere else, the point is in the wrong place. Reopen the location, click the map again, and save; the address is looked up again whenever the coordinates change.
Target one message at several areas
One message should go to people near any of several places, for example every city where you have a store.
- Create one location per place. Do not try to cover them all with a single large circle: a radius wide enough to reach three cities also reaches everything between them.
- Keep the titles consistent enough to be picked together later. A shared prefix such as the region or the campaign purpose makes the picker usable once there are dozens of rows.
- In the push editor, turn on Target by geolocation and select all of them. The picker takes as many locations as you need.
- Send or schedule the message.
Selecting more locations always widens the audience. If the aim is the opposite, reaching only people who are both in an area and something else, that second condition belongs elsewhere in the editor: pair the geolocation with an audience filter or a cohort, which do narrow the result.
Work out why a location reaches nobody
A location looks right on the map, but a message targeted at it reaches almost nobody.
- Check the radius first. Open the location and read the companion figure beside the radius field, which states the distance in both units. A 5 entered while the unit said miles is a different circle from a 5 in kilometers.
- Check the point. The map redraws the circle to scale around it, so a point dropped a city away from where you meant is visible as soon as you look at the shape rather than the numbers.
- Check that the project in Scope is the project the message is sent from. A location created in one project is not offered in another, and a similarly titled row in the wrong project is easy to pick by accident.
- Check whether your profiles have positions at all. Only profiles carrying a recorded point can be matched, and how many carry one depends on what your SDKs report and on whether city level tracking is switched on for the server.
- Check the audience conditions around the location. A cohort or an audience filter beside the geolocation narrows the result, so an empty audience can come from the combination rather than from the circle.
If everything above holds and the audience is still small, the honest answer is usually that few profiles have reported a position near that place. Position is optional data and many apps never ask for it.
Retire a location
A place has closed or a campaign is over, and its location should stop appearing in pickers.
- Open Geolocations and find the row, by title or by address in the search box.
- Open the row's menu at the right end and choose Delete.
- Read the confirmation. It says the location will no longer be available for targeting and that messages already using it keep working, which is exactly what happens.
- Confirm.
A delete is not a purge. The location is marked as deleted rather than removed, so a message that was already pointed at it can still resolve it and keep targeting the same circle. If you want a running message to stop reaching that area, change the message rather than deleting the location.
There is no way to undo a delete from this page, and no way to restore the row. Recreating the place means creating a new location, which will get a new address lookup and a new Created date.
Editing is the better move whenever the place still matters. Moving a point or widening a radius keeps the same location, so every message pointed at it follows the change on its next send.
FAQs
Can I draw a shape instead of a circle?
No. A location is a point and a radius, and that is the only shape there is. Cover an awkward area with several locations and target them together, since locations on one message combine as "or".
Why does the Address column show a dash on one of my locations?
Because the lookup found no place name for those coordinates, which is normal over water, in unmapped areas, and well outside populated places. The location works exactly the same; only its label is missing.
I changed the point but the address still names the old place.
Save the location. The address is resolved when the location is saved and the coordinates have changed, not while you are clicking around the map.
Why can I not edit or delete a row tagged Global?
Because it does not belong to any project. Those locations come from an older release, they are visible from every project, and this page only writes locations owned by the project in Scope. They remain available for targeting.
Does deleting a location stop a message that is using it?
No. The delete removes the location from the list and from the picker, but a message already configured with it keeps targeting the same circle. Edit the message if you want it to stop.
I targeted a city and reached far fewer people than live there.
Only profiles with a recorded position can be matched, and position is optional data that many apps never ask for. Check what your SDKs report before you widen the radius.
Are locations shared between my projects?
No. A location belongs to one project and is offered only when targeting that project. Two projects that need the same city each keep their own copy.
Can I see who has been inside a location?
No. Countly keeps one position per profile, the most recent, and no history of previous ones. A location answers where a profile is now, not where it has been, so there is nothing to report on entries or visits.
Does changing a location affect messages already using it?
Yes, on their next send. Messages point at the location rather than at a copy of its numbers, so moving the point or changing the radius changes what they target.