regional settings

good idea or bad

[too much information]

This is the first time I have started an ad campaign with the regional setting. So naturally I have a few questions and hopefully some of you have some suggestions.

I am trying to expand my business specifically into a few neighboring cities. AdWords lets me choose these areas for my ads to be targeted.

If I am not in that city, can I search for "New_City Widgets" and see my ad, or will it just show for people located in that city/area?

When setting up my keywords for a regional ad, do I still need to be specific (New_City Widgets) or can I be more general (widgets)? (I'm getting the 'On Hold' with the more general keywords)

Is it better to set up a Nationwide campaign and choose specific keywords or does the Regional campaign work well enough on it's own?

[running scared]

Probably a bit of both. This is how we normally operate:

Campaign 1

- Countrywide setting
- City specific keywords e.g widgets new_city

Campaign 2

- City setting
- General keywords e.g. widgets

This takes into account that the adwords targeting of cities is not 100% accurate as well as allowing for searchers who may be based elsewhere but looking for a product/service in a particular city.

[Jack_Hughes]

How accurate is the geo targetting? If I am just targetting a specific country am I missing good traffic because some people from my targetted country are never shown my ad?

[running scared]

> Country specific

Our own tests for the UK show that some do miss out but that the amount that do is very small. City targeting in the UK is a different story though.

[markd]

<<City targeting in the UK is a different story though. >>

Meaning that you are finding this more accurate Running Scared?

Following on from the conversation above, how are regional and towns and city relevance decided?

Is it compulsory to include the town or city along with the keyphrase, or is it possilble to target town and city as a campaign option, but use a 'generic' (but relevant) keyphrase:

eg.
keyphrase: 'widget' (across all campaign options)
Campaign options: region - target region, city - target city, town - target town?

[running scared]

MarkD

We find city targeting less accurate.

Whetther or not you can target to a particular town will depend on what country you are looking to target. So the answer to you question is yes is some cases, no in others.

[too much information]

I did go back and add the more specific terms under a national campaign, with the general terms in the regional searches.

As far as I can tell, the regional settings are better for the contextual ad serving (AdSense), but the national campaign is giving me more traffic from the search.

Maybe that is something to consider, if you don't do the context ads, you can probably skip the regional targeting.

[running scared]

Interesting TMI! What sort of sample set size did you use?

Might just investigate that one a little further.