Geo-segmentation or Geo-targeting refers to website advertising campaign which is focused on targeting specific location. As local search marketing is increasingly becoming important as a way of achieving geographic targets, segmenting your PPC campaigns and ad groups can definitely have a huge impact on key metrics like conversion volume and CPA – cost per acquisition. Google allows advertisers to target PPC and other ads by geographic regions, according to a preset list of countries, US states and specific US metropolitan areas. Geo-targeting is achieved by identifying the searcher’s IP address and consequently the geographical location of the searcher. Geo-segmented pay per click campaign ads are displayed only to searchers viewing Google in the targeted area or location. For website marketers, this is an important factor.
For businesses running on tight budget which limits the expanse of marketing message that should reach the broadest audience, this may not be such a bad thing. Great results can still be achieved even on a slim budget allocation. While the usual pay per click ads are meant to bombard your target customers, limiting the reach or scope of the PPC ads into specific and defined geographic locations will reduce the volume of non-converting clicks and impressions in the paid campaign. Geo-segmenting or geo-targeting is still underutilized and overlooked by many internet marketers.
By finding the geographic areas or location that have the highest click through rates, your pay per click ad may be segmented and diverted specifically at those identified locations and areas. There are some analytic tools that can be used to determine where the CTRs and visitor activity is coming from. Accessing your Google Analytic profiles will give you data on clicks on conversions from specific regions. Using this information, you can direct your PPC ads accordingly.
At this point, you are now presented with information that will help you manage your PPC ads and spread them out to the segmented customers according to geographic market locations. You can then create new PPC ads geo-targeted towards the high-conversion markets. You can then allocate a bigger chunk of the PPC ads budget to the high-performing markets, squeezing more conversions out of a limited allocation.
With the data from your analytics, you will be able to strip off pay per click campaigns in areas or markets that showed zero conversions for the past 12 months. The budget allocation for zero-performing areas may then be diverted to the high-performing markets. Caution should be exercised though to make sure that the identified non-performing areas or markets are genuinely of no benefit to the paid ads. It might be good to use other analytic tools to check on other possible ways that they can be converting. It will not be a good idea to lose a profitable and viable market just because they’re not performing according to the criteria of one analytic as they could be converting in different ways.
With geo-segmentation, you may need to adjust the times during which your ads show depending on the identified areas or regions. As regions are separated so must the ads be adjusted in those aspects. A standardized timetable for all PPC ads won’t perform as highly when you’re geo-targeting. It is important that the ads display during the appropriate time of day.
Since pay per click advertising can be costly, geo segmentation or targeting is done to achieve higher conversion rate. It is also done if your business can only serve a limited or specific geographical location. In essence, geo segmentation is practiced to cut on cost and to set high priority on areas that have high potential to convert and to the only areas being covered by the business.
