Geo-targeting

From Adylitica

Google AdWords offers very specific and sophisticated targeting by location, offering a powerful tool for controlling spend.

Geo-targeting is thus one of the 5 pillars of adwords optimization, along with keywords, variants, budget, and time of day.

From Google's definition:

Geo-targeting lets you target your ads to specific locations and languages. For each AdWords campaign, you can select the countries or regions and the language(s) for your ad. That campaign's ads will appear only to users located in those areas and who have selected one of those languages as their preference.

Geo-targeting can be very accurate and powerful, however it is not always completely accurate as a business in New York can use an ISP in Houston, resulting in Google not showing them NY based ads.

Keyword Geo-targeting

Although Google's principle method of geo-targeting is a sophisticated analysis of ISP data, it also uses a somewhat controversial method of geo-targeting that uses keywords.

For example, if you ad is geo-targeted at Beijing, China - and someone in the USA types your ad keywords and uses the words 'beijing china', even though Google knows they are not in China, they will still be shown your ad.

Optimization

• Local businesses like dentists and print shops should have very specific geo targeting.
• Even if a business sells to all locations, thinking about avoiding China and India, as they are locations prone to Click fraud.