geo targetting using ppc local listings
TRANSCRIPT
Geo-targetingHow to target customers searching for
services or products in a specific location?
by Ann Stanley
Presenting case studies fromAnicca Solutions & Interaction Media
About Ann Stanley
Ann is working part-time with the digital team at Interaction Media Ltd to provide additional consultancy to their clients
This presentation includes 2 case studies from Interaction’s clients and 2 case studies from Anicca’s clients
Personal profile:
MD of Anicca Solutions Ltd
18 years marketing experience (Chartered marketer)
7 years online marketing experience
Google AdWords Professional
Developed and teaches on the EMDA Web Academy Program, also at IAB, Search Academy and other events
Business Link trainer on the East Midlands Business Steps program
Anicca Solutions Ltd Anicca Solutions was formed as a web development company in
2004 and became a full digital agency in 2006
We are an East Midlands accredited supplier and carryout work directly for Business Link
We have collaborative partnerships with other agencies and technology companies and carryout work for them on a sub-contract basis
We have set-up a new training company called PPC-School to provide independent practical training around the UK
The management team includes; Ann Stanley (MD) is responsible for providing online marketing consultancy and
training to clients. Ann is a chartered marketer and a Google AdWords Professional
Alex Fowler (Technical Director) is responsible for building clients websites and developing and maintaining our own stable of websites
Dawn Clode (Property Sales Director) is responsible for sourcing and selling property to individual investors and commercial investors via our property portals www.new-homes-direct.com and www.overseas-homes-direct.com
Anicca Solution’s Current Clients
Contents Introduction to geo-targeting
Practical advice and case studies: Targeting local customers
www.CopperHomes.co.uk
A service in a local area with local and national customerswww.Aspect-Maintenance.co.uk
A national company wanted to target customers according to location
www.CrestNicholson.co.uk
Targeting international visitorswww.Westermans.com
What is geo-targeting?
The ability to target specific customers by their location using search engine marketing techniques
Geo-targeting is controlled by a number of factors: The domain name of the search engine used, eg Google.fr or
Google.es
The language preference set for your search engine
IP address of the user – when the person searching is located within the target area
Query parsing – if the location is included in the search term –even if the searcher is located outside of the target area
3 methods of targeting customers by location in the search engines
Creating content on your website for location specific
keyphrases (organic results)
Use geo-targeted pay per click (PPC), where you determine
where your ads will be displayed
Use of local or business listings, where your ad appears next to
a map in the business directory or Universal Search
Focus of this presentation
Different ways to set your PPC targeting
Countries (default setting is UK if you are located in the UK)
Regions or cities within a country
Bundles of countries (eg continents)
Customised Radius around postcode or address (eg 25 miles)
Point to point shape on a map eg linking towns in a certain region
Separate campaigns targeting a combination of the above
Who can benefit from using geo-targeting?
1. Businesses targeting customers within a local or specific geographical area
2. Businesses wanting to target local & national customers for a service in one location
3. National companies wanting to have a local presence for their chain of shops, showrooms or branches
4. Companies wanting to export or target international companies (either in English or foreign languages)
1) Businesses wanting to target local customers
Setting up a local campaign Geo-targeted PPC
Target specific cities, counties or area served Separate campaigns may not be necessary for each location Estimates based on national campaign – select phrases based on more
data No need to include keyphrase combinations with the selected cities, as
Google does this automatically using query parsing (even when searcher is outside of the area)
May need to add keyphrase combinations for nearby locations and the county terms
Use local listings in each of the search engines Local listings with a map are now featured in the Universal search
results for the major search engines Optimise your company description for the important keyphrases Your local listing can appear higher than the natural listings
Selecting towns in a region
Selecting a specific area
Selecting a radius around a postcode
Local listings featured with a map – Universal search
Optimise your local listings & a new site can leapfrog over the organic results
Case study 1
www.copperhomes.co.uk
Project
Service Buying property in the east & south midlands to avoid a
repossession or for a quick sale
Objectives of campaigns To support and replace local advertising with a limited budget To generate online enquiries and calls
Source of traffic – top cities
Q - Why is there traffic from London when it is not in the target area?
A – Query parsing!
Searching in London –ad does not appear
Searching in London - ad appears when Northampton is added to term
2) Businesses wanting to target local & national visitors to a service offered in one location
How to get national & local visitors for a local service
Ideal for services within one area, such as plumbers or electricians, where the client could be local or out of town
Local PPC campaign - targeting general phrases (should be exact match - so it is not found for locations outside the target area)
National PPC campaign - targeting phrases in combination with specific locations in the target region eg small towns, postcodes, boroughs (not picked up by query parsing)
Local listings – get multiple listings for all the locations within your region
PPC Hierarchy for Perfect Plumbers Ltd
Case study 2
www.aspect-maintenace.co.uk
www.aspect-maintenance.co.uk
Project
Service Property maintenance in the south east – targeting property
owners in the area and landlords across the country
Objectives of campaigns To achieve top 3 positions and maximum traffic levels To maximise the calls to the call centre
Structure of campaign
Each maintenance service has 2 search campaigns: National campaign - displayed in UK with keyphrases in
combination with London or boroughs eg emergency plumber in Wembley
London campaign - displayed in London with generic phrases eg emergency plumber
Additional campaigns for: Brand terms Afternoon/evening – in case other campaigns have consumed all
their budget; with separate ad groups for each service Content network with demographic targeting (> 25’s); with
separate ad groups for each service
Structure of campaigns & ad groups
Comparison of national vs. local campaigns
Note the national campaign will include searchers in London who add the borough or areas within London to their search term
Calls vs number of clicks
3) Businesses wanting to have a local presence across the country
How to have a local presence - nationally
Ideal for national companies with a chain of local shops, showrooms or branches; eg retail chains, franchises, house or car companies with local showrooms
Allows budget to be split between group and regional companies Use geo-targeting with PPC
For search terms including the location For generic terms without a location
Use local listing in each of the search engines Create a local listing for each showroom or office
Being found for search terms containing a location
Have a specific campaign for each city; pointing to a landing page for the local showroom or branch
Have shared campaigns for counties and regions; pointing to a landing page with all the showrooms or branches
Campaigns can be displayed nationally as they are relevant to people looking for the product or service within or outside of the area
Phrases can be exact and broad matched – as long as you pause any poor performing phrases
Create a template of phrases that can be altered for each location (using find and replace)
Being found for general phraseswithout a location
Two strategies1. One national campaign
Display all phrases within one national campaign Each ad group should point to subject-specific landing page Share the cost between regions or get the head office to pay for these
phrases
2. Multiple campaigns each for a separate region Country broken into a jig-saw of regions (eg county) Multiple copies of the same campaign each targeted to a local area Point to a landing page for the local showroom(s) or branch(s) In this case the budget could be paid for locally
Case study 3
www.crestnicholson.co.uk
Project
Service Crest Homes is a national house builder offering new homes and
refurbished developments. They mainly sell in the Midlands and South of the country
Objectives of campaigns To restructure the group campaign increasing the levels of traffic
but keeping to tight CPC and cost per conversion targets To implement Google Analytics to measure the success of the
campaign and understand user behaviour on the website To implement locations specific campaigns for individual
developments wishing to drive more traffic to their section of the website (or micro-site)
Original structure One ad group per development, including
Development specific terms Different locations Different property types
Keyphrases Many keyphrases were in more than one ad group eg county phrases Many keyphrases were missing There was a poor quality score due to large mix of keyphrases within in one ad
group Some brand terms were included in the PPC campaign even though they were
found in organic results – these had great conversions but wasted quite a lot of the budget
CPC was limited to 21p - so CPC and cost per conversion was very good (helped by large number of conversions from brand terms)
Structure of new group campaign Keyphrases
Creation of templates of keyphrases in combination with the word “location” Use Google Editor to create ad groups for new locations – using find and replace Use of exact and broad match – but once started ensure that phrases with a low
CTR are paused CPC limited to 31p in order to achieve a low average cost per conversion, focus
on getting great quality score and high CTR
Main campaign funded by group with national targeting, with separate ad groups for: Brand terms (only brand combinations where not in top 3 in Google) Generic terms such as buy new home (without a location) County specific – to a landing pages for developments in that area Development/location specific ad groups – using keyphrases in combination with
local towns, cities or the name of the development (each with separate ad group)
Structure of additional campaigns
Development specific campaigns with national targeting Replace equivalent ad group in group campaign Add extra locations using template (in separate ad groups) Split some ad groups by type of property eg apartments separate from
house Increase maximum CPC to 61p to increase positions, CTR’s and share of
the traffic Budget set and funded by individual developments
Comparison with Results from November
• During November 1/3rd of the conversions were from brand phrases that included “Crest”
• During January the same phrases were used (excluding the Crest phrases) – but with a larger budget. This resulted in a lower conversion rate
• During February the phrases were expanded and the cost per click raised to achieve more clicks
• During February and March the conversion rate has settled down to 0.8%, although this varies considerably depending on the development
• There has been a significant increase in CTR (due to better quality scores and pruning poor performing phrases); this has allowed to gain more traffic at a similar CPC
4) Businesses wanting to export or target international clients
Target audience – English Language The language choice reflects
the language that the search engine or third party site is written in The language selected by the user in their browser
If you want to export (but do business in English) Choose English language Only bid on countries where you can export or do business Select different countries or regions (bundles of countries) with each
country/region in a different campaign It is OK to use the same keyphrases but add colloquial phrases and
different spellings (check using the keyword tool) Generally the UK and USA will have a higher CPC, so check you are not
paying too much or have very high positions Some countries browse but do not buy, so check your conversion rates
Target audience – Foreign Languages
If you want to export and do business in foreign languages Only choose languages that you can do business in (either you have a
local agent or staff that speak that language) Have separate campaigns for each language & country combination Only use language and country combination that occur naturally (eg
Spanish in Spain, Europe, south America, north America) If you are targeting foreign languages then you need to target
keyphrases and have ad copy in this language (otherwise you will have a poor quality score and low click through rates)
Ideally take the searcher to a landing page in that language with the contact details for a local distribution centre or agent (the rest of the site can still be in English)
Selecting bundles of countries
Case study 4
www.westermans.com
Project
ServiceWestermans sell refurbished welding and cutting equipment
for international trade and industrial clients
Objectives of campaigns To create separate campaigns for the 3 different types of
equipment to target different regions of the world To implement conversion tracking and Google Analytics to
measure the success of the campaign and understand user behaviour on the website
Original Campaign structurePPC campaigns and targeting The account was split into three campaigns for the main types of
machinery: Standard welding equipment Specialist welding equipment including orbital welders Plasma and cutting machines
The three campaigns were set-up to be seen: in any country in the world in any language on any search engine or website in the search or content network (ie
partner sites that display Google ads).
PPC ad group structure Each campaign only had one ad group. This contained:
keyphrases for all the different types of welding equipment one ad with generic ad copy one landing page to the availability page on the website
Problems with the way the PPC account was set-up
The account was impossible to manage and understand where the traffic was coming from
Lots of wasted impressions – ads were being displayed in English on foreign language websites
The lack of targeting gave low click through rates (CTR) and ‘quality scores’ (because the ad was irrelevant for most people that saw it)
More competitive markets such as the UK and Australasia were being starved of budget – they also require a higher cost per click (CPC) to get reasonable positions and traffic
Only one ad group meant that all the different types of equipment had the same ad, also resulting in low CTR’s and quality scores
No data on conversion rates, cost per conversion and whether this varied by location (or network)
Use of content network resulted in cheaper cost per click but was this converting into leads?
New campaign & ad group structure
Map showing traffic sources
Top 20 countries – note USA traffic is from organic listings
Westermans - Summary
The original PPC campaign had a lower CPC due to the effect of the content network
Different regions and equipment types have very different levels of traffic, CPC and conversion rate
The UK consumes most of the budget – particularly for the normal welding phrases; although the budgets are currently limited due to capacity issues
PPC is only contributing ~15% of the traffic to the site; due tohigh levels of direct traffic, organic results and referrals
New campaigns will be set-up to target language and country combinations (starting with European languages within the UK)
We are developing a new website for Westermans with multi-lingual functionality - to better serve their international clients
Key-points There are 3 main ways of geo-targeting using the search engines
Location specific keyphrases within the website content and hope the site is found in the organic results
Geo-targeted PPC Local listings appearing in the business directory or Universal search
All the search engines have local listings and some form of PPC geo-targeting -with Google and MSN having the most sophisticated PPC targeting
Most companies can benefit from having a combination of local and national campaigns; targeting general phrases or those in combination with a location
Results have shown a reduced cost per click and higher conversion rates due to the campaign being more targeted – however this will vary between regions (particularly for international campaigns)
In order to get the most from geo-targeting - it is essential to have the optimum campaign and ad group structure
Use the free tools like Editor and Analytics – it can save hours! Use the PPC data to define your SEO strategy and then create location specific
content channels to increase your organic listings
