Geo-targeting question

[starboy]

For my restaurant in Los Angeles I have been running ads geo-targeted to Los Angeles. Problem was, I could never see 'em even though I live in L.A., and the Google tool was reporting that Google was unable to determine my location. My ISP is SBC Yahoo! DSL. Figuring that nobody else in L.A. using that ISP could see my ads either, I changed my geo-targeting to California, which appears to have fixed the problem. However, this is gonna increase my costs to serve ads to folks who aren't likely to drive from San Francisco for dinner ... :o) Is there a better solution?

[eWhisper]

You can set up a second campaign that's not geo-targeted, and then use geographic qualifier keywords, (i.e. los angeles widgets).

More in msg 6 in this thread:
[webmasterworld.com...]

[inbound]

An alternative solution is to still use California but add in popular geographic information to broad match ads. e.g. keyword place

The benefit to this is that it will pick up very specific queries at a lower CPC and higher CTR.

The downside is that you will miss maybe half of the people that search as they will not put in the area.

I have a UK based campaign that is costing half in CPC and has double the CTR, not bad but it does take time to research and implement well.

[inbound]

P.S. a US-wide campaign may match many other cities/towns/localities but is worth doing for distinct areas such as L.A.

Also if you are really keen you can use different URLs for each area to take people to suitable content. That also increases your conversion!