I have 2 types of ads running for a site that caters for just Scottish visitors (services provided in their homes), one set does very well yet the other set suffers from Google's poor attempts to locate where searchers are from.
If I have the ads set to run in just Scotland, the delivery amounts are far too low (around 20% of what they should be). But, if I enable UK wide advertising, the CTR suffers as the ads clearly state the service is for Scotland so 90% of people won't click through as the client does not cover them.
This is a real problem and I'm hoping that Google do something about this soon. I know IP ranges are difficult to tie down, especially with ISPs from all over the UK. I'd imagine that setting a cookie for the location of the computer/searcher would help immensely. or is that just too simple?
Any ideas on how to improve this (apart from adding geo data, that's what the better performing ads have)
I think you may do better to just stick with Scotland. As you said ctr goes down badly, but by keeping it targeted you are making sure that the users who do click through are genuine, potential customers. I think you need to forget about actual ad impressions and concentrate on total ROI.
If you are converting on the few clicks you get it hs to be better than not converting on UK wide clicks that are costing you money.
Mack.
