Question

Topic: E-Marketing

Ad Words Map Question

Posted by Anonymous on 2/7/2013 at 9:47 PM ET 250 Points
I have a very large ad words campaign that I uploaded from one account I then copied and pasted it into a second account I turned off the first account put it on pause the second account I've been playing with haphazardly. I'm Experimenting. One of the things I tried was to change the location map from a radius to individual ZIP Codes. I noticed The click rate dropped substantially after I did that. Does anybody have any insights on why that may have happened
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  • Posted by SteveByrneMarketing on 2/7/2013 at 10:13 PM Accepted
    experimenting are ya ... very interesting ... what is your theory?
  • Posted by Moriarty on 2/8/2013 at 4:55 AM Accepted
    Let's have a look at this. Because Steve is not being helpful, is he?

    We are dealing with geo-targeting. Usually in a campaign I target 20 million viewers. Depending on your keyword this could be all of Chicago, all of Illinois or the entire northern half of the US.

    Which is a different question to the one you are asking. My point is why have you a pinpoint/radius and why do you have a zip code? Neither are valid arguments, and neither will give you a meaningful result - how do I know this? Because you got meaningless results.

    Which is fine, you've learned something from it, posted a question and I'm here to put you on the right course. Because geo-targeting is a powerful tool.

    So let's imagine my campaign. Because you have 40 million views (you can discover this in the Google keyword tool) you can divide the US into two. East-West, north south it matters not. The decision is arbitrary. It's not the decision that is important here: ***it's your reaction to the results that is important***

    You can also right-click your keyword in the keyword tool and look at the Google insights for that keyword. If there is enough data, you can refine your search to the US and you will find that there are darker colors across regions of the country. These are your hotspots. This is where the action happens. With a north-south campaign, you would find out this data for yourself in a matter of days - only it has already been done for you courtesy of Google.

    So once you have your campaign set up at state-city-district level according to your needs, you can start having fun. You can find out what these different areas like best. Chicagoans are not from Tennessee, and like different things. You can treat each area differently - you can set up with the same five adwords haikus, each region will choose a different one. You can refine them according to region and thereby refine your offer an increase your sales. Each region will get its own tailored landing pages. You will have 10% CTR in Chicago - and 10% in Tennessee using two completely different campaigns that suit the likes and dislikes of each.

    What's more you can have a lot of fun! Does this explain your problem? Moriarty.
  • Posted on 2/8/2013 at 8:10 AM Author
    Moriarty, you asked, "My point is why have you a pinpoint/radius and why do you have a zip code? Neither are valid arguments, and neither will give you a meaningful result - how do I know this? Because you got meaningless results."

    The campaign originally had a large targeted circular radius in the Cleveland plumbing service market. This included suburbs we are not interested as well as many we are. Simply due to the arc of the radius. Consequently we receive many clicks outside of our travel area. By choosing Zip Codes I was able to tailor a more precise area. That was my logic.

    Secondly, you recommended, " You can also right-click your keyword in the keyword tool and look at the Google insights for that keyword. If there is enough data, you can refine your search to the US and you will find that there are darker colors across regions of the country. These are your hotspots"

    I am targeting the City-District level. Looking for plumbing service customers. Does your stategy work at the city-district level? Andy

  • Posted on 2/8/2013 at 8:48 AM Accepted
    Are your IMPRESSIONS significantly lower with the zipcode approach, or is it the CTR that's lower?

    It's my understanding that Google uses a different approach to identifying spill-in and spill-out when you use zipcodes vs. radius.

    Example: If an ISP is in town A, and you're in town B, maybe there are not very many people in town B who get their internet signal from that ISP, so you wouldn't be included in an ad targeted to just town B (based on zipcode). On the other hand, if the advertiser were using a radius approach you would receive the ad because the geographic definition would include both town A and town B.

    I hope this is clear. I've experienced this phenomenon when one of my clients asked to modify the geography for his ads and we went from radius to zipcodes/town names. Same result: fewer impressions (and fewer clicks).
  • Posted by SteveByrneMarketing on 2/8/2013 at 3:24 PM Member
    I see your logic (theory) that zip code targeting might improve your adwords campaign results over the radius targeting approach. I have seen this experiment stated as "adwords A/B testing zip code targeting verses radius targeting" (google this phrase for more info).

    The problem seems to be the way google collects and manages zip code data. It's not always consistent or complete. Mgoodman's example appears to be a likely scenario, but my guess is there are others as well, especially in a given specific geographic area like Cleveland.

    Sorry I couldn't be of more assistance. Perhaps these links will add some insight:

    https://adwords.blogspot.com/2012/06/get-local-with-zip-code-targeting.html

    https://www.whitesharkmedia.com/blog/15-benefits-drawbacks-zip-code-targeti...

    https://www.acquisio.com/ppc/google-adwords-dirty-little-secret-u-s-zip-cod...
  • Posted by Moriarty on 2/8/2013 at 5:04 PM Member
    Okay, I have a solution, even if it is only short-term. Please forgive me if it doesn't work. This works in my adwords account in the Netherlands where I live.

    I can set a radius coverage - and the interface allows me to choose the radius I cover. On my interface, this can be in miles (1760 yards, I think) or kilometers (about 1100 yards, 1000 meters).

    So: use several pinpoints in Cleveland - and use a pinpoint radius of several miles. Do this several times and you have your shape. My thinking is that you might have limited yourself to the standard 20 mile radius?

    Here is a picture of what I did, with 1 mile and 2 mile radiusses. If there is a name on the map, you can have it as a point from which you can have a radius. The minimum for a radius is 1 unit (mile or km - and as the kilometer is smaller, it gives you more control. Use both for finer tuning at larger radiusses).
    ( https://thecatswhiskers.nl/png-multiple-geotargeting.png )

    Whatever else, this will work right now, and you can have it in action by tomorrow morning.

    Does this help? M
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