Tools & Advice for Creating Local PPC Campaigns

Creating and managing a locally based PPC campaign for a client can be difficult, especially if you don’t reside in your clients area. I’m a Canadian who managers a number of locally based US clients. Though I like to believe my geographic knowledge of America is fairly astute, I still don’t know half of the smaller cities around major metropolitan centers in the US. Thus, I have compiled a couple tools to assist my “geographically challenged self” and to help you. Additionally, I have learned a couple of best practices when creating locally targeted campaigns which you might find helpful.

1. Local Adwords & Keyword List Generator

This tool is great! Simply add in your keywords, select the zip code and radius you are targeting to and presto - a list of keyphrases with the city names in that zip code. Whats even handier, is the ability to remove city names for areas you don’t want to target. It also has the option to wrap your keyphrases with phrase and exact matching parameters for Google AdWords.

2. IP Address Lookup

As you may know, Google’s geographic targeting is based on a users IP. Often a user may have an IP address located in a different geographic area than where they may be physically located. I’ve had a few clients call after their campaign has launched live, usually angrily asking “why can’t I see my ads!?” I find this tool helpful to diagnose the problem and ascertain their IP location.

When creating locally targeted campaigns, I employ the following technique which seems to cover all bases. For the sake of argument, I will use Google AdWords as my advertising platform. My example client will be a painting service in Buffalo New York.

1. Create a campaign using non-geographically targeted keywords and phrases (painting service, house painter, interior painting etc). Next, set the geographic setting to Buffalo.

Buffalo Geo Target

2. Create a second campaign using geographically targeted keywords painting service Buffalo, house painter Rochester, interior painting Tonawanda) and set the geographic setting to the state of New York.

New York

These two campaigns will cover the holes in Google’s IP targeting ability and still rope in the geographic traffic you are looking for. The next step is to monitor these campaigns and optimize for the higher performing CTR and conversion rates. Be sure to also pay close attention to your analytics data to ensure you are hitting the right traffic for your client.

John over at PPC Hero wrote a good explanation as to why these two campaigns are necessary when geo-targeting. I second his comments in the last two paragraphs and have had similar conversations with Google reps on the phone and at conferences about the best way to create these campaigns and how Google’s system handles searches like “Buffalo painting service” for searchers outside of your IP targeted campaigns.