You Can See Them From Here
Now you can geo-target users at country, city or ZIP code level
Where are your people? And more importantly, are they finding you? Knowing your ads show up for the right people in the right places is crucial, especially when your business only caters to a specific area. You may already be familiar with geo-targeting, but now there are new ways to customize your targeting, whether you’re reaching for the whole country or want to pinpoint a city or ZIP code.
Geo-targeting is a clever little feature that can analyze a user’s search query, their Internet Protocol (IP) address and other user information to determine where they are and what ads to serve to them. For example, if you select Portland as a geo-targeted region for the sale of your product, searchers with an IP address in Portland will be served your ad. If you’re a Portland business, you’re likely to get more relevant clicks that can lead to more sales. Our new updates give you the chance for even more relevant clicks.
Coast to coast
While geo-targeting is usually seen as limiting your area to fewer clicks, one new geo-targeting feature can actually bring you more traffic. If you were trying to reach United States customers before, your choices were either to select the entire market — both the U.S. and Canada — or individually select each of the 50 states. (Oh, and the District of Columbia. How could I forget you, D.C.?)
Not only is that a pain, but selecting individual states can leave traffic out. There is a good number of Internet users whose IP addresses suggest they are located within the U.S., but are not easy to pinpoint to individual states you’ve selected. Since geo-targeting is designed to show your ads to users our system recognizes as located within your geo-targeted areas, in the old system those users might not have seen your ad.
Getting local
Up until recently, the geo-targeting functionality was built around Designated Marketing Area (DMA), regions determined by Nielson Media Research, Inc. (yes, the Nielson group who conducts the TV ratings surveys). However, some advertisers need even more focus, especially in more populous regions. Yahoo! now lets you zoom in on targeted cities and, in a beta feature, ZIP codes as well.
You will find geo-targeting when you sign up for your account online, but you may go back in and change your scope at any time. To do this, select “Geo-Targeting” under your Campaigns tab in your account.:
- Click the “Campaigns” tab.
- Choose a campaign.
- Click the “Campaign Settings” drop-down located in the upper right-hand corner (above the graph).
- Select “Geo-Targeting.”
From there you can use the pulldown to select your target area by Entire Market, Country, State/Province, DMA , City or ZIP code. A map will provide a visual of the areas you are selecting.
To narrow your scope further, try our ZIP code feature, currently in beta. First, select ZIP/Postal Code from the pulldown. From here you may type in the ZIP codes of the areas you want to serve, and use the Search button to confirm where the ZIP codes you’ve selected are located. You can also use the dynamic map to zoom in and out and find more ZIP codes within your area if you don’t know them all offhand.
How tight is too tight?
Keep in mind the more you target, the fewer users your ads may reach. Generally, you’re trading relevancy for volume, narrowing your target to a specific audience rather than every potential eyeball in the overall market. For example, if you service a small area and only choose five ZIP codes, you are likely to receive a limited number of clicks from people in those targeted areas who are searching for your products. We recommend choosing a minimum of 10 ZIP codes to broaden your scope.
You can also opt not to use geo-targeting by de-selecting all geo-targeting settings within your account, and your ads will be eligible for display to the entire U.S./Canada market. This may work for those who will ship products anywhere or who want to utilize the ability to get their brand name in front of as many users as possible.
Our new geo-targeting system is designed to help you hit the bullseye with your ads every time!
—Kastle Waserman, Communications Manager
http://www.ysmblog.com/blog/2008/10/20/you-can-see-them-from-here/
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