Why is geotargeting so important?
It brings many developments to scaling efforts, reporting, budget optimization and aligning insights with other marketing channels both digital and non-digital.
Irrespective of the scope, any paid search strategy is undone without geotargeting considerations.
If a paid search effort has a big or a small budget, awareness or direct response as a goal, has been running for a while or is setting up for the first time, geotargeting is a key element to review.
In reality, geotargeting benefits go beyond paid search. It applies to marketing at large.
While critical to paid search marketing, geotargeting principles are accepted by all marketers being channel and tool agnostic.
What are the PPC actions to be taken?
One must consider the significance between the keyword, bid, ad copy and landing page.
The exact solution for this isn’t just altering geotargeting. It needs the combining of these with audiences, time of day, device type and so many elements to drive results.
Geotargeting can be yet another growth that must be considered a critical optimization tactic. If you need the ad copy and landing page to match the geography, geotargeting becomes more essential from a user experience standpoint.
In a lot of cases, it can even confuse things to a level that doesn’t make a difference for your organisation. In many other cases, it could be the key to unlock your results.
Geotargeting Tips for Your PPC Campaigns
01 Remove Unnecessary Hyper Targeting
With the many tools provided by engines (i.e., Google Guide on geographic locations and Bing Ads Location Targeting Guide), it is simple to try hyper targeting at a minute level.
The result of many small campaigns will backfire with small budgets that are tough to handle and volatile results. Small geographic regions usually do not drive consistent results due to having low traffic.
02Separate Your Campaign by Time Zones
Your target area might not be in the exact time zone as where you or your client is.
Try to adjust launch, reporting, and stop times depending on where the target users are. Not where you or your client is located physically.
You may even set up different campaigns, if multiple time zones are involved.
If you don’t, you might find campaigns running out of budget before the day ends due to users in earlier time zones (e.g., US EST) consuming most of it. This is very important with international paid search campaigns
03Target Strategically Important Markets Separately from the Rest
Some areas often will need singling out for strategic reasons. For instance, they may be locations of flagship stores, countries with field sales team offices or areas with a powerful competitor presence.
In cases like these, make sure that targeting is adequately large to capture a meaningful level of traffic. It is recommended to use radius targeting relying on a reasonable driving time for a user to need your product or service.
A bank convincing users to visit a new branch to discuss mortgage and loan offerings will warrant wider geotargeting from a home supply store encouraging end-of-season clearance on potted plants.
As the former is a bigger consideration item, the bank’s target audience will be ready to drive much longer than somebody saving a couple dollars on plants.
04Never Set & Forget
Geotargeting trends change more often. The trend that worked one year may not work the next year.
Mature campaigns are oftentimes the best fit for geotargeting enhancements, but new efforts can also benefit from a more granular go to market approach.
If you haven’t done much geotargeting or have not revisited your settings, give it a go.
