Adwords Geotargetting in Ireland?

seachto7

Hi all,

Wonder if anyone could help me out on this. Can anyone say for sure how accurate geotargetting is for PPC in Ireland?

Previously, I recall that if someone was targetting the Munster region for example, that an issue would arise with someone in Cork whose IP address is registered in Dublin. So you could have someone searching for an ad that is only targetting Cork, and they may never see it. Is this still the case?

I know there have been developments with local business listings in the last year or so and location extensions in PPC, but I have not had to address this issue of geotargetting / region targetting in a while.

If I only targetted the counties in Munster for a PPC campaign, is there a danger people in Dublin could see the ad (therefore wasted clicks and impressions), or is there a danger lots of potential clients will not see the ad as their IP/hosting is based in Dublin?

blue4ever

The geo targeting is always going to have an inherent flaw in it as its primarily IP based.
So the ip dictates to Google where the punter is, which is not always the case. County wide, I'd suggest you are ok (or hear enough). But getting down to the nitty gritty of city and towns, things can get hairy.

For example I am in Dublin. I had an account with digiweb and the ip suggested that I was in Co Louth.

You can look at the ip ranges of the various service providers here
http://www.nirsoft.net/countryip/ie.html

and put the ip address in here
http://www.ip-adress.com/ip_tracer/78.137.191.255

to show you the different locations suggested by the various service providers.

C

seachto7

Thanks for that blue4ever. I suppose if I excluded Dublin from a PPC campaign would I be damaging myself. As in, the client in question delivers a product, but not to Dublin, so I would exclude it I am wondering if I just included the county in question and the surrounding counties, would I be limiting myself too much...

blue4ever

Ok, here is my take on this. My issue here is the service providers , who have no choice but to geo-locate their ip addresses and therefore the users are piggybacking in the back of them. I’d love to know how many people outside Dublin are, for ip purposes, in Dublin.

You could do this: setup a new campaign, allocate a portion of the budget to that campaign. Copy over (duplicate) your adwords to that campaign. Then in the Locations and Languages portion of the campaign select only the counties you are interested in.

Leave that run for enough time to get reasonable data and see how its converting in comparison to the original campaign.

The other way to do it is through your keywords: “Deliveries Galway”, “Couriers Galway”, “Deliveries Nenagh”, “Couriers Nenagh” (I’m stabbing in the dark a bit not knowing your business fully). But you get the drift, a little monotonous, but might yield the results you want.

seachto7

the client in question delivers oil, but down in Munster and in some surrounding counties, but they wouldn't go as far as Dublin, so my thinking would be to exclude Dublin and other counties further away from a PPC campaign, but if people still have their IPs registered in Dublin, then I could be losing out on lots of potential clicks....

blue4ever

You wont know until you test that theory, seriously!

I'd split the campaign for testing purposes.

seachto7

true enough, I guess I'll have to take the plunge and test........

blue4ever

Dive in!

mneylon

It's not going to be accurate at all

Eircom, for example, will have IPs set to their Dublin address (obviously) and they're being handed out by exchanges in Limerick and elsewhere for towns on the other side of the country.

The only way it works is if you have a business with their own IP range or sheer luck / coincidence

blue4ever

True,

when I was Answering that reply earlier I did an IP search for me, next to Moyross I was on Monday!

That's exactly why i prefer to see it done on Geo-targetted Keywords

mneylon

Keywords will work - they're also more likely to be useful

I could be working in Dublin but living somewhere else ..

So a plumber in Dublin wouldn't be of much use to me

seachto7

My thinking would be to leave the targetting in adwords as the whole of Ireland, but just build ads and adgroups with specific locations in them.

So, if it were pizza delivery, it would be "Pizza Delivery Limerick" in the ad title and copy, as opposed to just choosing Limerick as the region to target within adwords, and potentially lose out on searchers in Limerick whose IP is from Dublin?

blue4ever

so what would the keyword be to trigger that? "Pizza Delivery"?
Then what about Cork or Waterford? If you had "Pizza Delivery" as a keyword in that ad group what happens?

I'd set up an adgroup for each of the potentially earning areas. I'd scour the analytic of the site to see the keywords that people are finding the site on (and Webmaster tools to see when the site turns up in a search). See if there are geographic phrases there.

Then look at the adgroup and have broad, phrase and exact matches for particular geographically based keywords.

seachto7

If I only delivered Pizzas in Cork, and only targeted Cork in adwords, then I could use keywords like "pizza delivery". But if it's a case it's too risky to just target a few counties due to the IP issue mentioned, then I would be using location specific keywords to at least appear in the ad title...

blue4ever

Your ad copy has (for targeting purposes) nothing to do with the search. You have to have target the keywords. "Pizza Delivery Cork", "Pizza Delivery Limerick", "Pizza Delivery Clonmel" etc.
You have to be specific. If you have a keyword for simply "Pizza Delivery" which ad will appear. And it will possibly cost you a whole heap at such a high volume phrase.

seachto7

Hi all, sorry for dragging up an old thread, but just wondering if anyone might have an update on this at all. I haven't set up the campaign yet, but am about to this week.
It may just be a case of split testing....

blue4ever

In a nut: You wont/cant target 'Munster' or 'Cork' based on IP addresses alone. You'll have to do this via keyword targeting.

seachto7

blue4ever wrote: »

In a nut: You wont/cant target 'Munster' or 'Cork' based on IP addresses alone. You'll have to do this via keyword targeting.

as I suspected.....