Most practices set their ad geofencing by gut feeling — a flat 10 or 15 mile radius around the office, regardless of what the surrounding area actually looks like. That number rarely matches how patients actually decide whether a practice is “close enough,” and getting it wrong wastes budget in both directions: too tight, and you miss patients genuinely willing to travel; too loose, and you’re paying to reach people who were never going to make the trip.

Drive time, not distance, is what patients actually weigh — a 12-mile suburban drive on open roads and a 12-mile urban drive through traffic lights are not the same commitment, even though a simple mile-radius geofence treats them identically. This is precisely why drive-time-based targeting, where available, tends to outperform a flat radius: it reflects the real friction a patient is weighing rather than a straight-line distance on a map.

For routine eye care, most patients won’t tolerate much more than a 15 to 20 minute drive. But ophthalmology, particularly surgical and premium procedures, behaves differently. Patients researching cataract surgery, LASIK, or a premium IOL upgrade are making a higher-stakes, lower-frequency decision, and they’re generally willing to travel substantially farther for a practice or surgeon they trust — often 30 to 45 minutes, and sometimes considerably more for a specific surgeon’s reputation or a procedure not widely available locally.

This means a single geofencing radius for an entire practice is usually a mistake. Routine eye exam and general ophthalmology content should stay tight, matching the shorter radius patients are actually willing to drive for a recurring visit. Surgical and premium procedure content — including upstream, education-first campaigns like an athlete-focused vision awareness program — can extend meaningfully further out, because the decision being marketed justifies a longer trip.

The practical fix is rarely more budget. It’s matching the geofence to the specific decision being advertised, rather than applying one default radius to every campaign regardless of what’s actually being offered.