seasalt - 5:20 am on Feb 13, 2006 (gmt 0)

Hi:

I have a few questions for those with knowledge of
the 'city targeting' campaign feature of AdWords.

I have been using AdWords for about nine months using the country (US) targeting feature with moderate success.

My product tends to have more of a regional appeal and my sales history reflects that. Therefore, I think a campaign targeting specific cities could be more effective.

Question 1: Google mentions that AOL traffic and traffic in which they cannot determine origin is not included in a city targeted campaign. Are there any guesstimates at what percentage of traffic in any given city that amounts to? Are we talking something like 10-15%, or is it much higher than that?

Question 2: Speaking of the AOL traffic, does anyone have an idea of the distribution of AOL customers - i.e. are they fairly evenly distributed across the US or are they concentrated in areas with less prevalent broadband access?

Question 3: How does Google define a city's area? Does it pretty much cover the counties in a Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) or does it go out further than that?