Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
How Can I Target Certain Countries in Google AdWords without Excluding Other Countries?
-
So, here is the situation:
Our company works with merchants worldwide (with the exception of those who live in excluded high-risk countries--mostly in Africa), but most of our Google AdWords leads come from Indian merchants.
My CEO wants our campaigns to convert leads from other countries (i.e., the UK, Germany, US, Canada, Australia, etc.), but I have no idea how to do that without excluding India. However, my CEO does not want to exclude India from our AdWords campaigns as the leads are profitable. We simply want more diversity with out leads in terms of geographic location.
I am sure there are resources on the Web about how to do this, but I am not an Adwords expert and am unsure of what phrases to search to find the answers.
Direct advice or helpful links are much appreciated.
Regards,
Meghan -
Just my 2 cents, but if you're not going to tune the ad text by location, this is precisely why Google has spent so much time creating these new enhanced campaigns. As the campaign runs, you can still see geographic-based reporting if your campaign targets different countries. But instead of creating different campaigns, you'd set bid adjustments for different locations to adjust the CPCs by region.
This makes the reporting marginally harder (you can still see this data in the dimensions tab), but if you're not going to take advantage of ad text by region, I think this is easier. Mainly because when you make changes to these campaigns (add/remove ad groups, keywords, ad text), you're going to have to remember to duplicate these changes across all the campaigns you've spawned. Also, when you want to start adding demographic and remarketing lists to your search campaigns (coming soon - currently in beta), you'll have to set that up and manage those bid adjustments for each of these campaigns as well.
-
Hi Meghan,
If you want to change bidding by location, you will first need to add lots of cities to your campaign. Then let the campaign run for a while, so you can accumulate data for each city. Once you have clicks & conversions for several cities, you will be able to make decisions about conversion rates for each city. Does this make sense?
After time goes by and you have enough data, just click on the campaign >> settings>>> locations. Do you see the column 'bid adjustment"? This is where you +/- bids for that location.
Branden
-
Branden and John,
You both provided very helpful information. However, I think I will start with Branden's simple advice on creating separate campaigns to target countries using the same ads and keywords.I will take some time to explore the bid-setting by location and see if I can make sense of it. I am primarily a content writer, so the marketing and technical aspect of AdWords is fairly new to me.
Thank you both so very much for your help!
Regards,
Meghan -
If you want to keep things simple, just go into settings and add more countries to your targeted locations. However if you want to be able to control separated budgets & bids for each country, I recommenced that you have separate campaigns for each country. Just create a new campaign, copy/paste your current keywords & text ads into the new campaign. This will allow you to have separate budgets & bids for each country, which should result in better performing campaigns. I also recommend that you exclude countries that you are not targeting (both the high risk countries you mentioned, and other countries that you do not want to target).
If you want to make your campaign perform even better, I recommend that you take advantage of the enhanced campaigns 'bidding by location'. This will allow you to +/- bids based on location. For example if you have a higher conversion in 1 city, you will want to increase keyword bids in that city. To be able to achieve this, you need to be targeting lots of cities, not just the entire country. It will take some time to add all of the major cities in a country, but this will allow you to +/- bids for each city, which is a major improvement.
-
You can include or exclude locations in the campaign settings within Adwords. If there's a significant lead volume from India, and want to tune ads directly to them, you could duplicate your campaign(s) and geotarget them to India specifically, to get higher CTRs from those ads. If you've upgraded to enhanced campaigns, you can do bid adjustments by location too, to easily adjust your CPCs by location.
The Adwords help article is here. We usually refer to it location targeting or geotargeting if you want to search for it.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Unsolved Google Ads Subdomain in sitelinks & Composition Change for Strategy Status
I have a basic query but could not find a definite answer on the internet. I am currently running a campaign for the main website of a big education brand and they also have a secondary learning website on subdomain, and I want to add sitelinks of subdomain to the campaign, but I am not sure whether it is allowed or not. The brand I am running ads for is https://www.rauias.com/ and the secondary website is https://compass.rauias.com/ branded slightly different in a subdomain, so should I add the sitelinks of Compass to the main campaign? Also one more silly question My Max Conversion search campaign gave me this status today. "Learning (composition change): Campaigns have been added to or removed from the bid strategy. Google Ads is now adjusting to optimize bids. 5 days left for learning" What does this mean exactly? And Why does it reenter the learning phase whenever I make a small change?
Paid Search Marketing | | rauoff0 -
Unsolved How should I update the grouping of keywords in a google ads account
hi, I have a google adwords account running for a while in a fairly competitive market in a major city so there is only one geo location with many suburbs or council areas as popular searched. I have keywords that are 2-4 words long and very similar. I have had one keyword in its own campaign, several in one campaign and a location campaign. The location campaign has several adgroups for specific suburbs. My question is that the most popular search terms are similar but in different campaigns and I am wondering if this is not the best way. for example I have these keywords in separate campaigns as exact match and phrase match
Paid Search Marketing | | salliWW
rubbish removal
rubbish removal near me
rubbish removal Washington But the way google uses exact match seems to be changing and I am concerned these would be best in one adgroup. Also these keywords trigger similar phrases, for example, waste removal. Is it best to put them in one campaign with one ad group or one campaign with separate adgroups, or leave as is. As competition has increased I need to bid for top of page now and need to keep budget rises as little as possible..0 -
How to know competitors keywords for adwords
I want to run google campaign for adwords and I want to target keywords that my competitor is ranking for. How can I know what are the keywords that are helping my competitors the most. Is there some way so that I can know what my competitor is bidding for those keywords. I heard it also depends on the landing page quality. Please suggest the best strategy to run adwords at lower cost and yet perform well. I am willing to run campaign for this website . It is basically meant to connect manufacturers representatives and independent sales reps to businesses. Any suggestions are welcome.
Paid Search Marketing | | HelloWorld20200 -
Best practice to separate paid from organic conversions in Google Analytics
I have a PPC campaign for a client with standalone landing pages with a form, not reachable from the website (although in the same domain). I've added the AdWords conversion code to the "thank you" page and I also added a Goal in
Paid Search Marketing | | DoMiSoL
Google Analytics whose counter is increased every time the thank you page is reached. This way I can track conversions with both AdWords and Analytics. Is that correct? Should I import back in AdWords the goals from Analytics, as suggested in the AdWords account? I have another landing page with a form in the website, where I send users coming from
organic search, so I set up a second goal in Analytics for the thank you page of this form. Is this the reason why I am supposed to import in AdWords the analytics' goals, so that I could see both kind of conversions in both accounts? But the most important question is: If I send both PPC/organic visitors to the same landing page is there still a way to separate PPC from Organic conversions? Thank you very much for your advice. DoMiSoL Rossini0 -
Google Analytics and WorldPay - Tracking Sales/Conversions
Hi there, I recently remember reading somewhere that tracking code could be used to monitor sales/conversions of eCommerce payments that went through WorldPay. I've been looking around the web for news stories, forums, discussions, but all seem to be from 2007 - 2011; was just wondering if anyone knew any up-to-date info they could point me towards? Thanks
Paid Search Marketing | | bricktech0 -
World Localities in AdWords?
If I target the topic "World Localities>San Antonio", what type of sites my ads will be display? Are they sites about San Antonio, like tourism guides or event listings? Or are they related to San Antonio, like a university or flower shop in San Antonio?
Paid Search Marketing | | howlusa0 -
AdWords training resources
Hi guys, Aside from Google certification, can anyone suggest a good training program for Adwords? I'm studying their materials, but more formal training, where I can be tested in my knowledge and improve in certain areas as necessary. I want something with videos with demonstrations. Going from organic SEO to SEM and am frightened! Thanks,
Paid Search Marketing | | SSFCU
Sarah0 -
Increasing Google Ad spend - is it worth it
Hi We are currently spending approx £500 pcm on google ad words however if I increased this spend to £4000 pcm what kind of results would this achieve? For example would it just be more visits per day as the budget is larger? Also what is the best way to track the success of an adwords campaign - the ultimate goal of the campaign would be to generate a lead whether this be a phone call, email or using our book an appointment form. Our service covers a geographical area (Scotland) and for organic search we are doing well 1st pages listings for searches such as pvc doors edinburgh etc so I am unsure whether it's worth increasing my PPC spend or put more resource into SEO, or even Facebook ads?
Paid Search Marketing | | ocelot0