Regional Targeting - enabling makes ad disappear

[Brett_K]

I live in Portland Oregon - near the center of the city. When I select regional targeting for Portland, my ads immediately disappear. When I change the settings back to all United States, they reappear.

Friends around Portland get various results. Some see the ads, some don't. Google says that if they can't determine the location of the IP that they display the ad anyway. Doesn't seem to work that way.

Any thoughts on this?

[AdWordsAdvisor]

Google says that if they can't determine the location of the IP that they display the ad anyway.

This is not really correct. If the system can't determine the location of the user's IP address, then nationally targeted ads will show.

AWA

[Brett_K]

Ah, I see. I didn't read the FAQ carefully enough.

So assuming that a significant portion of viewers in my city fail to see the ads because their locations are undetectable, is there a workaround?

I currently have one campaign with two adgroups containing one ad each, both pointing to the same domain. I would love to be able to take advantage of regional targeting but worry that I may be dropping out of sight to many potential customers. Normally I just set to national distribution and list my city and state in the ad copy.

Is there any information on the percentage of IPs in a regional target area are undectable to AdWords? I am a Comcast cable customer, as are many of my prospects.

[archie goodwin]

I'm in Seattle, and a Comcast subscriber as well. When Regional Targeting was introduced I saw Seattle ads. The last month or so, for some reason I see Hartford, CT ads instead of Seattle ads. I haven't changed any settings on my end, so I'm still a little skeptical of the geotargeting system.

AG

[AdWordsAdvisor]

So assuming that a significant portion of viewers in my city fail to see the ads because their locations are undetectable, is there a workaround?

...I would love to be able to take advantage of regional targeting but worry that I may be dropping out of sight to many potential customers. Normally I just set to national distribution and list my city and state in the ad copy.

Brett_K, you've really just about described the best workaround. However, I'd add one important detail.

Either in addition to (or perhaps instead of) describing your city and state in the ad itself, use regionally specific keywords. So if you are a dog polisher in San Francisco, California, you might consider use keywords like those shown below. (Note: this is not an exhaustive list, but just something to show you how to 'expand' a few keywords into a more complete list.)

dog polishing sf ca
dog polishing sf calif
dog polishing sf california
dog polishing san francisco ca
dog polishing san francisco calif
dog polishing san francisco california
dog polisher sf ca
dog polisher sf calif
dog polisher sf california
dog polisher san francisco ca
dog polisher san francisco calif
dog polisher san francisco california
canine polishing sf ca
canine polishing sf calif
canine polishing sf california
canine polishing san francisco ca
canine polishing san francisco calif
canine polishing san francisco california
k9 polishing...and so on.

When you use regionally specific keywords, such as these, then only someone who includes that region in their actual search will see your ad.

AWA

[AdWordsAdvisor]

I'm in Seattle, and a Comcast subscriber as well. When Regional Targeting was introduced I saw Seattle ads. The last month or so, for some reason I see Hartford, CT ads instead of Seattle ads. I haven't changed any settings on my end, so I'm still a little skeptical of the geotargeting system.

I don't blame you!

When you see things like this, it would be great if you were to write AdWords support, using the 'Contact Us' link, and describe the situation. Let us know what you are seeing, how long you've been seeing it, if you see it all the time, and so forth.

We would for certain want to have the tech folks look into it, and figure out what is up.

The only thing that comes to mind right off the top is that your ISP may have changed your IP address to another location, without letting you know. There are probably multiple sites on the Internet where you can verify the location of your IP address, so this should be possible to check.

<added> I just did a quick search on my favorite search engine for 'location of ip' and got a pretty good selection of sites. </added>

AWA

[archie goodwin]

I'll let support know what I'm seeing. I've used the "dissastified with your results?" form a couple times, and left some feedback there.

The only thing that comes to mind right off the top is that your ISP may have changed your IP address to another location, without letting you know.

I think you're probably right on, seems like its more than just Google that thinks I've migrated to Connecticut. : )

[moltar]

And large ISPs flip around IP addresses all the time. They run out of blocks in big cities and borrow left overs from small cities. It is really not that difficult to do. IPs are not attached to geogrphical areas (on small scale).

[Brett_K]

I searched for my IP location and it appears to be Sunnyvale CA, not where I am which is Portland Oregon. I set my ads to the SanFrancisco Bay area regional setting but the ads still didn't appear.

Google is pretty upront in their help section about the "beta" status of the regional targeting. They claim that in "the majority" of the tests they ran, that it worked as intended. However, that's pretty sketchy information for someone who is seeing problems and trying to assess how many customers are actually seeing their ads.

I think that I will simply run my own test for a week and take advantage of the regional setting to use much more general keywords for my ads. If my response goes up I may keep the settings even though I know that there are many who will not see the ads. If the response stays the same I'll just go back to national settings and wait until Google implements a better technical basis for defining the viewers location.

I do already use local words and variaions in my keyword list, as AdWordsAdvisor suggested, so this change should allow a good comparison.

Thanks very much to everyone for your info and help. This is a great forum.

[Chndru]

>I just did a quick search on my favorite search engine

Should we take bets on it, AWA? :)

[AdWordsAdvisor]

People in cubes near me are now wondering why I'm laughing all of a sudden. Getting a few stares, in fact.

;) AWA