Putting the There, There

Geo-targeting, Part I

When advertisers talk about where their ads are displayed, they usually mean “where on the Internet?”…what search pages, content or Yahoo! partner web sites their ads show up on. But where in the world ads are displayed can be just as important, and sometimes more important, that where on the Internet. That kind of “where”—the geographic where—is what geo-targeting is all about.

Geo-targeting lets you restrict your ads to users who are either located in, or who are interested in, a specific geographic area. That geographic restriction is selected for each campaign, so it is applied to all of the ad groups and the ads within that campaign.

For example, an advertiser who is advertising widgets and sells only to customers in Ohio can set up a geo-targeted campaign aimed at users who are either A) physically located in Ohio or B) have expressed an interest in an Ohio location in their search query (“Ohio Widget” or “Cleveland Widget”) or elsewhere on our network.

This can lead to more qualified clicks from qualified users who are more likely to convert.

What’s Under the Hood
So how does all this actually work? Geo-targeting is actually made up of several different technologies all working together. Yahoo! has developed a state-of-the-art system for recognizing locations in search queries, partly based on our acquisition of WhereOnEarth Inc., a company based in London, in October 2005.

We also developed a network-wide system, called “My Locations,” that enables our users to manage the locations that they type into Yahoo! properties every day–including local search, weather, movies and many more. My Locations provides us with a deep understanding of the geographic interests of our users, which is used as part of our geo-targeting system.

Lastly, we look at the IP addresses of users to determine the cities, states and countries they are located in at the time of the query or page view. All of these technologies work together to provide the best possible geographic filtering for geo-targeted ads.

How to Take Advantage
Different advertisers with different advertising strategies will be able to use geo-targeting in different ways. National advertisers can use geo-targeting to customize their creative for specific areas. Regional advertisers can use geo-targeting to restrict their ads only to areas that they service. And local advertisers can use geo-targeting in combination with geo-modified keywords aimed at specific neighborhoods—such as “Chinatown Hotels” or “Downtown Restaurants”.

Geo-targeting is a powerful feature that can give Yahoo! advertisers more control than ever over who clicks on their ads. And that’s good for everyone!

Next Week: Geo-targeting in practice

— David Caswell, Senior Product Manager, Global Geotargeting, Yahoo! Search Marketing