I'm currently attempting to run a national and local campaign side by side and am not sure it's been setup correctly.
We're in Australia, so local marketing can be a bit hit and miss with the search terms in certain areas.
I am trying to target Melbourne specifically (capital city of an Australian state) for a few terms, and have set up two campaigns with multiple groups.
So I have:
National campaign for terms such as "generic customer problem melbourne"
Geo-targeted campaign to 25km around Melbourne with keywords of "generic customer problem"
Is this correct? Should I be doing it some other way? I have read through the forums and keep getting conflicting answers, but my geo-targeted campaign is very limited in impressions and clicks.
Any help, advice, or things to look for is appreciated. Also any good articles on running National and Local campaigns simultaneously. I've read the Google Help.
Thanks
Adam
so your "generic customer problem melbourne" will be able to trigger your geo campaign, as well as the national one you set up. so you needn't have a separate national campaign to "catch" those indicating "melbourne" in their search.
what i suggest is the geo one (leaving off the search terms with melbourne - they're too long and will trigger your geo campaign anyhow and your ad will show the targeted area.
then behind that, at a lower bid, (if people outside the target area are of interest), cast a net for non-geo prospects.
so your geo campaign will catch the good stuff. and the national one will snag people outside the area - will convert lower, but you'll pay less for them.
as it is, your national one competes with the geo one - the lower bid on the nat level will make sure your the overlap is minimal. you want the benefits of the higher ctr in the geo one to not be watered down by losing clicks to your nat one.
hope that makes sense. :-)
So, forgetting what I have already set up, If I do it like this, it is the more correct way?
1. Set up a localised campaign (lets say 25km in and around melbourne using map tool) with keywords "customer problem"
This will receive impressions for searches on IP's in that locale for "customer problem".
Customers searching outside of that locale (anywhere in the world?) that type "customer problem melbourne" will be shown the ad. Assuming Google associates the keyword melbourne with the city of Melbourne in Australia.
2. We could also run a national/international campaign targeting the keyword "customer problem" at a lower bid rate. This means anyone in Aus would see the national ad. It has to be at a lowr bid rate, otherwise local searches in the melbourne area for "customer problem" would return the ads in the wrong order? or perhaps the local one wouldn't show and the national one would?
If that's what you said, I have understood :)
Thanks!
2. yep, essentially. it's not so clean as to say a lower bid absolutely guarantees local searchers will only trigger the local campaign only - because there are many factors determining which keyword gets triggered (like ctr). but shifting the national bid lower will mean the local folks will generally be triggering only the local campaign, but depending on the gap between the two bids, you may get a little overlap where a few local folks trigger the national campaign. the bigger the bid gap, the smaller the overlap.
further, your local searches will be more compelling to visitors, so generally you'll get a higher ctr for the local geo-targeted campaign - so don't think that the gap needs to be huge. if the bids were the same, performance alone would likely serve the local one locally - but put in a bid gap to "help" G decide to serve things as you wish.
We were trying to trial the ads only in the Melbourne area and not the rest of Australia. Using a regional campaign is good, however lets say 50% of customers use a national ISP. So the ads only attract half the potential impressions.
Other customers who use a national IP and search for "customer problem" would see no ad, customers who search "customer problem melbourne" see the geo campaign. How can you capture customers on a national ISP in the geo area who search "customer problem" without attracting the rest of the country. Or is that impossible? I guess it makes it quite hard to run a completely effective localized trial?
if G can't tell where someone is from, you can't do what you asked. but you knew that. :-)
however, you've assumed that IP address is the only way G can know where someone is located - this is a gross simplification of things. there are many other ways G employs location detection mechanisms.
the best you can do is the inner and outer deal we've explored. snag known geo targets ("Within" the target area or otherwise "indicating" it) with a highly effective, high ctr campaign aimed at them. sweep the rest with a lower bid, wider net.
geo ain't perfect - to sleep better, know that the inner/outer combo you're using gives you a higher roi for several reasons and is more effective that your competitors who aren't doing it. they're lumping it all together, so you can kick them in the shin (higher position, lower cpc) by letting local consumer's know your offer is local to them.
:-)
on your wider net (ie nat campaign), pay close attention to your ad text - test the roi on ads that indicate geo info and ones that don't - the strength of the geo pull varies with your biz model and customer sensitivity to geo factors - but usually, indicating geo info in your sweep / outer campaign (especially for services only available locally), your aggregate clicks (and their costs) go way down and your roi goes up.
in any case, have fun bruising some shins!
Cheers, you've really got me on track.
