Diving Deeper into Targeting

We answer the more advanced Q-and-A’s from our recent webinar

Recently we shared five common questions we received at our March webinar on the slick new targeting features available to advertisers in their Sponsored Search accounts.

Some of our attendees, however, lobbed some more detailed questions at the team, and we thought these equally worth of sharing with our blog readers. As Sir Francis Bacon (mmmm, bacon) famously said, “Knowledge is Power,” so beef up your targeting expertise with the collected knowledge below:

Q.: Can geo-targeting and demographic bidding be configured through import (using a Yahoo! template, not an import of an AdWords campaign)?

A.: The import feature has not been updated to include these new enhancements at this time. However, we are continually looking to update our products and services. We will forward this suggestion to our Product Development team for future consideration.

Q.: Can you elaborate more on targeting by zip codes, city and DMAs? Can you run the same keywords in these campaigns simultaneously, and how does that affect the display of these keywords in the Yahoo! search engine?

A.: Your positioning or quality score will not be affected if you use the same keywords targeted to different areas. Duplicates will only hurt you if you are targeting the same areas with the same keywords, since you are then essentially competing with yourself.

Q.: Let’s say I had a ad group bid of $0.20, a keyword bid of $0.10, and ad scheduling bidding set to a 20% premium. Would my actual CPC be 20% over the ad groups bid or 20% over the keyword bid?

A.: In this scenario, your cost-per-click would be 20% above the keyword bid, not the ad group bid, because a keyword bid overrides an ad group bid.

Q.: Do you recommend reducing your standard bid across the board when you add a premium to specific times of day?

A.: That’s a decision each advertiser must make; however, either way you’ll want to make sure that you continue to at least meet the minimum required bid for a keyword before adding a premium to it for specific dayparts. If you do not meet the base minimum bid for a keyword, ads for that keyword will not be displayed, even if you add a premium.

Q.: If a user has an unknown IP address, will they see my geo-targeted ads, or will they be blocked from seeing them?

A.: Users with unknown IP addresses will not see ads from advertisers using geo-targeting on the keyword relevant to the user’s search term, unless we know their location based on user data. However, users could still see ads from ad groups or campaigns not using geo-targeting.

If you want to see and hear the entire targeting webinar, visit our Webinar Archive and click on the link for “Enhanced Targeting Capabilities.”

— The Team