Articles in The 'local-ads' Tag

Add Location Extensions to your Microsoft adCenter Paid Search Ads

by Anne Garcia

Location Extensions is a new local Microsoft Advertising adCenter offering that allows advertisers to display the business address and phone number in their text ad. When a user sees an ad with Location Extensions they can see additional details about your business in the ad results and this encourages users to click on your ad or even go to your brick and mortar location. Ads with Location Extensions are more likely to be clicked on in comparison to ads without, thus likely to increase your click-through rate (CTR).

Location Extensions are free and easy to set up in adCenter and will be seen on Bing.com and Yahoo.com — Bing/Yahoo syndicated search partner sites are not included as of yet.  The ads with Location Extensions will show within a 50 mile radius of the Business Location. One thing to keep in mind is the way Bing and Yahoo deliver their ads — Bing uses IP addresses only, whereas Yahoo will read a geo-modifier.

The new Location Extensions are similar to Google AdWords Location Extensions, except Microsoft does not require the business listing to be drawn from the Bing Business Portal — Google requires that the location data be drawn from Google Places.

To set up Location Extensions, in the Campaigns View of adCenter, select “Manage your business locations”:

Enter your full business address and phone number under “Create business location”:

Return to Campaigns View and select “Edit your campaign settings” in the Campaign you would like to add Location Extensions to. Under “Advanced Settings/Ad Extensions” select the Location Extensions check box and Save:

Local Ads are important to Marketers, but challenges still exist

by Ron Dinger

Marketers are taking advantage of local targeting options, but certain issues remain with the channel that are confusing marketers and limiting the full growth of the space. In a recent survey from Marchex, conducted by Sterling Market Research, “national advertisers have a significant interest in doing more local online advertising, but are missing opportunities because they remain confused about the best tactics, traffic sources and measurement tools available.”

Some main points from the survey – 90% of marketers that are using local ads are not targeting below the state level (Zip, City, DMA). 45% of advertisers are not using unique messaging for each local market. 33% of advertisers cited cost as the main reason they aren’t more involved with local ads. Issues measuring campaign effectiveness was another common reply in the survey.

The good news is that most local ad networks are listening to advertisers and offering more flexibility with targeting and measurement of ads, which should help reduce any frustrations that advertisers are currently experiencing.

Some ways you can assure that your local ad campaigns are effective:

– Utilize a unique phone number or call tracking for each locally targeted campaign to properly measure call volume from each market.
– Use distinct local messaging/offers in ads for each market.
– Serve landing pages with a local flavor for each market.
– Track actions in each local market separately with analytics.
– Assign a separate budget to each locally targeted campaign.
– Diversify your traffic beyond paid search only.

If you are looking to target your demographic on a local level, MoreVisibility would be happy to help you formulate a strategy for successful locally targeted ads.