Optimizing your digital ads to show in relevant search queries should be the main goal of every PPC strategy. One of the most direct ways to optimize your digital ads is through geotargeting specific locations that have proven strong results.
Where other PPC strategies work to evaluate campaigns for potential leads, geotargeting takes your optimization to the next level by concentrating bids onto crucial locations. Audits on your geotargeting should be done at least once a quarter to ensure that your ads are targeting the locations where conversions are their strongest.
Must-Know Features for Geotargeting
Google Adwords is one of the most comprehensive digital advertising platforms with powerful geotargeting settings that expand reach from an entire region to select neighborhoods. Some of the basic geotargeting options include:
- Country
- State/Province
- Metro Areas
- Congressional District
- County
- City
- Zip Code
In addition, Adwords allows users to geotarget a set radius of 1 to 500 miles from a fixed point like college campuses, recreational grounds, and shopping centers. Adwords will also allow you to combine geotargeting with demographical data like sex, age, and income, making geotargeting highly useful for niche products and services.
Structuring Your Geotargets
The overarching strategy when setting up geotargets is to bid more aggressively in your best performing locations. The structure of your geotargets are greatly dependent on your budget, offering, and market. For example, if your offering is a localized like a restaurant in downtown Austin, Texas, your geotargeting structure will be different from a company a software application company in the same city.
In general, there are three types of strategies to consider when structuring your geotargets:
- Opting-In
The most common geotargeting strategies opt-in their targets to restrict advertisements to a specified location. In the earlier example, creating campaigns that are only targeting Austin, Texas will increase the quality of your leads because only people in the city limits will see them.
- Opting-Out
Opting-out works similarly to opting-in, but instead of creating borders around a target you’re cutting a location out. If you have data that shows poor quality leads coming from a concentrated location, then it may be in your interest to opt-out your advertisements from showing there. This will help your campaigns lower their cost-per-acquisition.
- Mixture
Mixing both opt-in and opt-out will ensure that you’re getting the most qualified leads for your budget. In the software application company in Austin, Texas has developed a product for financial experts, then they may want to advertise their software to the financial centers in Europe. If the software is only available in English, then they may want to opt-out of regions in Europe where English isn’t a major language.
In addition to greater quality leads at a lower cost-per-acquisition, setting geotargets for your campaigns will give you greater insight on your keyword and bidding choices. Geotarget performance data can be broken down by the keyword, allowing you make more informed decisions about your overall Adwords strategy by location.
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