Advice Needed: How Does Google Geo-Target?

[psllo]

Hi,
I am runninng a geo-targeted campaign, and noticed that under my sponsored link, the city I am geo-targeted to will appear. Does anyone know:

1. How geo-targeting works on Google...is it based on ISP or IP addresses, and
2. Can I get rid of the location under my sponsored links?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks.

P

[mcanerin]

I know the first answer: It's based on IP addresses. This can be a concern sometimes (ie AOL users can't be geo-targeted).

I don't think you can get rid of the city for your second question, but I'll bow to the wisdom of someone who has actually tried - I haven't.

Out of curiosity - why would you want to? It seems to me that being identified as targeted to the area would be benificial...

Ian

[abbottsys]

Google uses the IP address for targetting. And no, you can't get the Location to go away on your ad when using regional targeting... although I believe it does go away if you switch to radius targetting. (Radius targetting is one of the options in "Custom Targetting")

[Chris Boggs]

and of course it goes away if it's in the top 2 and the bids are high enough to warrant upper-left status...

[psllo]

My primary concern is that since Google geo-target by IP address, someone in Atlanta for instance may have the IP address that indicated he is searching from Florida, and therefore the ad will have "Florida" underneath it (instead of "Atlanta" where he really is). This may be misleading to potential clients. This is the reason why I want to find a way to eliminate the regional notation underneath the ad.

[projectphp]

So target the US! Really, you should only use geotargetting if the losses (e.g. mistargetting) are something you can live with... and they won;t always be!

[ApogeeWebLLC]

My primary concern is that since Google geo-target by IP address, someone in Atlanta for instance may have the IP address that indicated he is searching from Florida, and therefore the ad will have "Florida" underneath it (instead of "Atlanta" where he really is). This may be misleading to potential clients. This is the reason why I want to find a way to eliminate the regional notation underneath the ad.Doesn't sound like local advertising is what you're looking for. If the product/service is in the local area, you'd want the "special" notation indicating your product/service is, indeed, local. Only people who search from the local region will see the ad, anyway. That's the point. If someone is in Atlanta but is using an ISP based in Florida and Google's system resolves the ISP proxy server address to a Florida location, your Atlanta local ad will not be displayed. Here's what works for these sorts of situations: create 2 campaigns. One is local with general terms and the other is national with regional terms. For example, if you're selling widgets in an ad group, try something like this:

Local Campaign Keyword List:
widgets
buy widgets

National Campaign Keyword List:
atlanta widgets
atlanta ga widgets
atlanta georgia widgets
"widgets in atlanta"

I'm simplifying here. You'd want to make extensive use of negative and exact matches. Point, though, is to use general phrases in the local campaign and regional keywords for your national campaign. Try it. This strategy works well. Also, consider splitting your content campaigns out separately as well, but that's for another topic. ;-)

[psllo]

I really appreciate all your insight and knowledge. I just joined this board and cannot believe how great this forum is!

Thanks again and have a great week.

[gan]

Here's another example of when to use geo-targeting: we've noticed that, for one of our product lines, customers in California make bigger orders, on average, than customers in other states. So, we are willing to bid more for CA customers and have a geo-targeted ad for CA in addition to a national ad.

This ad gets far fewer views than I would have expected. Which makes me think that there are many groups of IP address for which Google doesn't the geolocation (in addition to AOL).

Does any one have any idea what percentage of IP address Google can geo-target?