Local Google AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing
A rather interesting discussion is blooming at Webmaster World about locally targeted search advertising via Google AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing. Both Google and Yahoo offer a form of locally targeted advertising. Google’s is more precise with regional search term targeting while Yahoo offers a service with a Yahoo based landing page with map, phone numbers, and other contact info; designed more for the brick and mortar world.
In the thread, Adam talks about a chat he had with a San Francisco based pizza shop and whether or not locally targeted paid search would work for them. He suggested local profiles on Amazon, but with Google and Yahoo Local Maps both growing in marketing related content, a Yahoo Business profile would also be highly recommended.
Adam asks two major questions :
1) Are many people really using the Web to scope out pizza places to go to? I know I use Citysearch and related sites for reviews on high-end restaurants, but for pizza, I’ll generally go to a place I already know or I’ll try out a place if I get a coupon on my doorstep or in the newspaper. I don’t generally look for “pizza” or “pizza in [my zip code]” on Google.
2) Have any of you done regional campaigns on AdWords for something like this? How successful were your efforts? Any tips?
I couldn’t help but respond, as did someone named eWhisper with a great list of locally based profile sites for small businesses. Here’s a blurb from the discussion, Have you had success with regional targeting?:
Google AdWords has been terrific with the campaign, letting us high positions for specific targeted terms only in our client’s target market, with no spill-over outside of that market (with Google AdWord’s regional targeting). High CPC’s, but very very high conversions.
As far as Yahoo goes, for top keywords we cannot target to the specific region, so we use geo-specific terms in the copy. Lots of spillover but the lower CPC’s than Google.
We tried Yahoo SM’s Local Match, but were restricted to searches for our keywords + “town name” in the specific area. Very little traffic, but very targeted.
Additionally, MSN AdCenter, when launched outside of Beta testing, will be offering locally targeted search ads in MSN search. Jot that down on your to-do list for when it goes live.
Speaking of Local Search, the Kelsey Group is asking search marketing professionals to take their Local Search Survey to get a sense of how good users think “local search†(broadly defined) is today and what you believe the ideal local search product feature set should be.
