Geo-targeting is moving to the masses thanks to some new functionality on the Google AdWords Enhanced Campaigns dashboard. That’s huge news for affiliates who want to harness the power of geo-targeting for their search engine marketing campaigns.
All this new geo-targeting firepower gives advertisers an opportunity to pick apart end-user location data in the same way they pick apart other metrics such as device used and keywords.
Though the system is incredibly sophisticated, it’s still not exactly perfect. Some user have complained that a lack of data makes geo-targeting tough to work with (though there’s little doubt that will change over time).But that doesn’t mean that geo-targeting isn’t worth looking into.
In a recent article on SearchEngineLand.com titled, 3 Components Of Geo-Targeting Excellence For 2014, blogger George Michie pointed out a few ways for getting the most out of this up-and-coming technology. Here are a few of his pointers.
Contiguous Hierarchies
Contiguous hierarchies is a fancy way of saying that geographic puzzle pieces almost always fit together.
In terms of search marketing and social network templates Michie’s example of this dynamic is the relationship between the 90210 zip code and the greater Los Angeles Area. Though there might not be enough data available on your preferred geographic area, simply expanding the targeting to nearby areas could yield the desired results.
Non-Contiguous Regional Commonalities
If you read that last paragraph and thought, “That’s great, but Los Angeles is an incredibly diverse city with all types of demographic groups living next door to one another. What does Michie have to say about that?”
Michie, agrees with your observation and suggests using publicly available data, such as household income and home ownership to create what he calls, non-contiguous clusters. These demographic archipelagos can be the cornerstone for all kinds of marketing and advertising campaigns.
The caveat here is that getting all that additional demographic information can be seriously time consuming.
Advertiser Specific Clusters
This one is geared more towards e-commerce sites that are impacted by issues like shipping costs and proximity to warehouses.
For casino affiliates, advertising specific clusters could be more general, such as a preference for one type of poker game in a certain region or the popularity of bingo in the UK (vs the rest of the world).
Finally
If you feel like you’ve got a pretty good handle on how keywords work, and most big affiliates do, you’ll probably find some very interesting nuggets in the world of geo-targeting.