Follow the steps below to find the top selling locations in Google Analytics:

Step-1: Upload this custom report called ‘Product Analysis’ in your main Google Analytics view: https://analytics.google.com/analytics/web/template?uid=T9NIg6JpQouv-ds7RNJ9-Q 

Step-2: Open the custom report. It would look like the one below: 

Step-3: Make sure you set the date range of the report to the last three months.

Step-4: Make sure the metric ‘Product Revenue’ is selected from the drop-down menu:

Step-5: Determine your market type by its size. Is it international, national, regional or local?

Step-6: Use one of the strategies below according to your market size:

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International Market

If you sell products worldwide then start your product analysis at the country level. Find the top 5 countries in terms of sales in the last three months. Direct your marketing efforts and resources towards them.

Even if my target market is worldwide, I most likely won’t be running marketing campaigns in each and every country. I am most likely to focus on, top 5 countries (top in terms of sales).

When you are advertising at an international level, cost per acquisition tends to be very high. So you need to make great efforts to keep costs under control. No company has an unlimited budget, no matter how big it is.

National Market

If you sell products only in one country but at the national level then start your product analysis at the state/region level. Find the top 5 states/regions in terms of sales in the last three months. Direct your marketing efforts and resources towards them.

I target the entire country only when I cannot find clear top 5 winners and/or CPA goes up when I narrow my target audience size (quite common in case of Facebook ads)

Regional Market

If you sell products only in a particular state/region then start your product analysis at the city level. Find the top 5 cities in terms of sales in the last three months. Direct your marketing efforts and resources towards them.

I target entire state/region only when I cannot find clear top 5 winners and/or CPA goes up when I narrow my target audience size (quite common in case of Facebook ads)

Local Market

If you sell products in a particular town/city then you start your product analysis at the town/city level.

However, these rules are not set in stone.

I sometimes achieve great success by targeting at the city level even when my target market is international. It all depends upon your industry, business model, and target audience.

The point to remember here is, find those geo locations which are generating maximum sales for your company and direct your marketing efforts and resources towards them. 

You cannot sell your products at each and every location in your target market. So do not spread your marketing efforts and resources too thin by trying to be visible everywhere, for everything you sell. For example, I have noticed many marketers advertise all over the US just because they think that their target market is national.

But if they dive deep into their analytics reports they would most likely find that they are not getting sales from each and every location in the US. They are most likely getting the majority of sales from 5 to 10 locations. These locations could be cities or states.

The rest are generating little to no sales with high cost per acquisition.

Remember the Pareto principle, 80% of sales come from 20% of the locations. The other 20% sales come from 80% of the locations.

Often businesses spend 80% of their marketing budget to get that 20% of sales from the remaining 80% locations which leads to high cost per scquisition.

Don’t make this mistake. Yes, you are getting that 20% sales but at what cost. If you are spending $100 to sell a $50 product then is it worth it? No.

Even public traded companies, advertising at a national level can not afford to ignore top selling locations. If your target market is as big as the US, China, or India where the cost per acquisition tends to be very high because of the ginormous population and cut-throat advertising competition, you should definitely not ignore your top selling locations.

For small businesses, finding top selling locations is critical because they have got a very limited budget. So you need to find your top selling locations before you move further with your products analysis.

Step-7: Click on the US map (if your target market is US) in your ‘Product Analysis’ custom report to determine top selling locations at the national level in the last 3 months:

From the report above we can conclude that California is the top-selling location at the national level. But I want to drill down further. 

Step-8: Let us click on the ‘California’ map to determine top selling locations there:

From the report above we can conclude that it is not profitable to target/advertise all over California let alone throughout the US. You won’t get such type of insight without segmenting top selling locations.

Step-9: Scroll down to the data table and then sort the table by ‘Revenue’ metrics to find top selling locations within California:

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