Like many outdoor enthusiast/ live music fans, my summer plans usually kick off in June with the annual Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in Manchester, TN, followed by a road trip from my home in Seattle to Quincy, CA, for the High Sierra Music Festival that’s held over the 4th of July weekend.
Not this year.
The rise in gas prices have had a huge impact on my summer plans: last year, my flight to Tennessee was $100 cheaper. The road trip down to California is 725 miles one way -- with gas prices being what they are, I’d have to be crazier than Murdock to drive an RV on a 1,450 mile roundtrip adventure. While not everyone spends their summer vacations traveling thousands of miles to camp out at music festivals, most everyone can sympathize with altered (or even canceled) travel plans this year.
Confronted by the high price in gas and air travel, many people are seeking out events, activities and other opportunities for entertainment that are closer to home. I recently read an article in the Seattle Times about how Washington state parks are seeing higher campground use with a reported average increase of 12% through the end of June. Some city parks have added staff to keep up with the surge of visitors choosing less expensive vacation alternatives.
How can we use this information to help the small business owner?
Target your customers by location. If, for example, you sell camping equipment out of a store located in Bend, Oregon, you can target your campaigns for searchers located in the central Oregon area that are searching for keywords like “sleeping bags”, “tents”, “camp stoves”, etc.
Set incremental bids to target demographically. Did you know that you can increase your bids by a percentage of your choosing based on day of the week, time of day, age, and gender? Taking our camping supply store example, if you know that your target customer is a male between the ages of 18 and 45, you might want to consider incremental bidding. If you’re bidding .50 for a keyword, and you would be willing to pay $1.00 if you knew that the searcher looking for that keyword were a 30 year old male, adCenter can pull this data from the profile of any user logged in to their Windows Live ID or Hotmail account and could possibly place your ad in the topmost position just for that specific searcher (positioning is not guaranteed as several factors go into the ranking algorithm, bid being one of them).
Targeting by geographical location requires two steps. First, you select locations, and then you place your incremental bids.
1. Click the Campaigns tab.
2. On the Select a campaign page, click the campaign that contains the ad group you want to add targeting to.
3. On the Select an ad group page, click the ad group that you want to add targeting to.
4. On the Manage selected ad group page, click Edit ad group settings, and then do one of the following:
5. Target customers by country or region
a. Under Target your customers by location, click Select countries/regions.
b. In the Available list, select one or more items, and then click Add.
6. Target customers by city
a. Under Target your customers by location, click Select cities within a country/region.
b. In the Country/Region list, select the country or region.
c. In the Available list, select one or more items, and then click Add.
7. Click Save, and then under Set incremental bids for targeting, click Bid for location, day, time, age, or gender.
8. Under Location and time, select the additional amount you want to bid to target by location, in 10 percent increments over your keyword bid amounts.
9. If you want to run your ad at non-targeted locations also, click Display ads in other locations.
10. Click Save.
Screenshot for geo targeting by location
Screenshot for incremental bids for targeting
Focus on local events and activities. Not only will you increase exposure to people looking for less expensive alternatives to traveling this summer, you’ll also gain visibility with local markets who may turn into repeat customers that prefer to shop, dine or find fun things to do in their own backyard on a regular basis.
Keeping this local focus in mind, try creating ad copy that tailors to this demographic. One simple way to tailor your ad to the customers focus is using dynamic text to insert keywords into your ads. You can use the {keyword} variable to make your ad title, ad text, and display URL show keywords that match, or closely match, the text a customer types. Making your ads more relevant to customers can help increase the click-through rate (CTR) and the conversion rate of your ad campaign. Taking our camping supply store example, let’s say the customer is searching for “mummy sleeping bags”. Don’t you think you’ll have a better chance of attracting that customer is your ad title specifically displays “Mummy Sleeping Bags” vs. something generic like “Camping Supplies”? It’s no secret, it will!
So there you have it. Whether you’re selling camping gear in the Northwest or renting beach cruisers in Miami, there are plenty of people trying to stay local. All you have to do is make sure your ad appears when they’re looking for it, and there’s no better way to make that happen, then targeting and dynamic text.
If you have any questions or comments please visit the adCenter forum.