Quick answer
How do I check a city-targeted ad campaign in a European city?
Start with your ad platform's own preview tools, then open your landing pages directly from a home IP in each target city. EuroCity Proxies sells residential IPs with city targeting on every plan, from $0.95 for 1 GB as of October 2026, with no KYC. Do not click ads, yours or competitors'.
What does a preview tool show, and what does a city IP add?
For your own campaigns, start with Google Ads' Ad Preview and Diagnosis tool: it shows the same results for a chosen city and language without adding impressions. Other ad platforms offer similar previews.
A local home IP adds what the tool cannot: the landing page, redirects and currency a real visitor gets. Geo-redirects, cookie banners, store pickers and city-specific prices are applied by your site from the visitor's IP, after the ad.
For search results rather than ads, see the local SEO proxy page; to test your own app, the geo testing proxy page. Choose the city on the city list and keep one IP with a sticky session.
How do I check landing pages without touching the campaign?
Open the ad's final URL with your own tracking parameters, never the ad server's click link: that counts as a click.
- Choose the city parameter, for example
-country-it-city-milan. - Use a sticky session (
-session-ad1-ttl-10) so redirects run on one IP. - Open the final URL in a clean browser profile with the local language.
- Record the page, the currency, any redirect chain and the cookie banner text.
- Repeat for each city of the campaign, with a new session ID.
Why should I never click ads during checks?
Do not click ads, yours or competitors'. Each click is billed and counts as invalid traffic. Keep page loads to a few samples per check, since each one can register an impression.
Live searches that show your ad also count as impressions, which is why the preview tool comes first. Keep live checks to a few manual samples.
Does a campaign targeted at one country appear elsewhere?
It can. Google Ads' default location option targets people in, or regularly in, or who have shown interest in your locations ("Presence or interest"). A campaign aimed at Spain can therefore appear to someone outside Spain who searches about Spain.
To check what a person physically in the city sees, use the city IP and the local language, and compare with the preview tool's view.
Ad verification: FAQ
Can I check a competitor's ads by city?
You can look at what a local visitor sees on public pages, by hand. Do not click their ads: each click costs them money and counts as invalid traffic. Prefer the platforms' own ad transparency libraries for competitor research.
Which session length should I use?
Ten minutes is usually enough for one landing page and its redirects. up to 30 minutes (the IP can change earlier).
Can several clients share one account?
Use sub-users: Sub-users with their own credentials and traffic cap, one per client or project. Each client gets its own credentials and traffic cap.
Which sites are blocked?
Banking, government and payment-portal sites, plus SMTP (email-sending) ports 25, 465 and 587. Ad landing pages of banks or public bodies cannot be checked through the gateway.