Geotargeting & Why You Should Use it to Advertise

Geotargeting is a necessary way for advertisers to specify the location of their ads. When utilized properly, geotargeting helps focus on a specific market, which results in more relevant messaging and a better return on investment. Advertisers can choose different content for their ads based on geographic locations so there is less wasted money spent on the advertising. This tactic is often used when advertising to local clientele. Local markets can be an untapped area when it comes to ad targeting. Too often do marketers want to cast a wide net, but targeting a more specific, local audience can be impactful. There are people right in your backyard who could be looking for what you're selling. When you turn to MSEDP, we can help with geotargeting your ads and drive local business.

4 Reasons to Choose Geotargeting Ads

For geotargeting ads to be successful, you have to target the right area with the right content at the right time. Sounds easy, right? Well, not so fast! The easiest way to ensure you are not wasting clicks is to use an accurate location. For example, if you are based on Long Island, New York and do not service off Long Island, then you will want to make sure you are only advertising to people on Long Island, New York. Otherwise you are wasting money targeting people who cannot become customers. Marketers choose to use geotargeting ads for a few notable reasons. Let's take a look at four impactful reasons.

1) You Will Become Locally Relevant

In many industries, it pays to be local and relevant. Local restaurants, real estate companies and small businesses with only a few locations benefit from an advertising approach that is more localized. Really any business that wishes to operate on a local level can benefit from geotargeting. However, it is not just small business that benefit from this approach. Big businesses can also benefit from local geotargeting, too. And many service-oriented businesses operate on a local level, such as landscaping companies, lawyers, contractors, and electricians. They operate in a certain area and for some it is unfeasible to go outside that area. So if you are paying for ads, you want those ads to be going directly to an audience you service. Becoming locally relevant can go a long way for many businesses and can eventually build up a solid clientele base.

2) Geotargeting Limits Competition Against Yourself

When beginning a geotargeted ad campaign, you start by segmenting it. This way you have the ability to separate by location or product or service. Segmenting aspects of your business is something that comes in handy when you have several locations close together. It can make a big difference in the success of a campaign. Companies and businesses with locations close together should segment by product or service rather than location. When these locations are close together, you may be overlapping with your own campaign. Thus spending more money to compete against yourself by raising the price per click.

When utilized properly, you can segment by product or service over location in an effort to avoid bidding against yourself. It is not smart if your locations are all bidding on the same keywords, but if you are more specific with your keywords and segment by product or service it can lower the price per click, increase returns, and better your overall performance.

3) You Might Not Optimize Properly Without Geotargeting

There are scenarios when there can be confusion between names, such as Washington state and Washington D.C. If you work in Washington state, you do not want to be coming up in searches for the Washington D.C. area. Yet, it can happen if you are not careful or not fully utilizing geotargeting tools. One of the great things about geotargeting is that it allows you to get as granular or broad with your options as you want.

When you optimize properly, you identify the audience most likely to convert. So, someone looking for a landscaper in Washington state is not going to convert for a landscaper in Washington D.C. With the Google Ads tools, you also have the ability to "exclude" the areas you do not want in a search. Further aiding your ability to show up in searches exactly where you want. For example, you can exclude "Washington D.C." if you are a landscaper in Washington state. But you can also exclude certain areas in Washington state where you do not service and focus on the areas you do. In the end, an optimized paid search campaign decreases wasted ad money and helps increase ROI by being able to pinpoint where you want to come up and exclude yourself from areas you cannot service.

4) Hide Ads from Your Competitors

Last, but not least, you can hide ads from your competitors. If you are offering something new or have a sale, you might not want your competitors to know, right? With geotargeting, you can hide ads from your competitors by using a method called IP exclusion. When you use IP exclusion, you have the ability to prevent people from your competitors' corporate offices from seeing your ads. And with geotargeting, you can still advertise in that area against their products or services as this method keeps your strategy safe without removing an entire market from your search strategy.

It works by first identifying your competitor's IP addresses. Once you identify it, you can exclude it from your AdWords campaigns. Once excluded from your ad campaign, they will no longer see your ads from that IP address. This method works by keeping your competitors in the dark and gaining an edge. Of course, this method is not foolproof and may not last forever, but any edge can help you break through and hiding key ads from competitors even for a few days can pay off big time.

Geotargeting in Marketing with MSEDP & Google Ads

Geotargeting is perfect for marketing because it allows you to deliver the right message at the right time to the right customer base. It does not only need to be based on real-time location, but can also target people who have recently visited a region. And it can also target those who actually live in a particular region. You can use all of these geotargeting methods in your marketing campaigns to target the exact audience for your services or products.

The ads will differ based on location. There are four ways these ads can and should be different if they are going to work properly. Here are those four aspects:

1. Offers
2. Visual elements
3. Language
4. Currency

Taking into account different cultures can be important for certain services and products. Even on Long Island, you can decide whether or not you want an ad to appear in a different language to attract a certain culture. And if you ship globally, you have the ability to change currencies so anyone seeing the ad knows right away what the price is. They do not need to do the math on exchange themselves. Design the landing ad pages with visual elements that are tailored to the exact region you are targeting. These tools are right at your disposal when it comes to geotargeting with Google Ads

With Google Ads, you can also exclude certain locations, use location-specific keywords, run local awareness campaigns, and create custom target lists for your ads. The team at MSEDP has years of experience working with Google Ads and will help you build a geotargeted campaign. Get the most for your money when you turn to MSEDP and their geotargeting skills.