Google Adwords just introduced Geographic Performance to their suite of reports. It gives you "geographic distribution of your impressions, clicks, and conversions down to the ad group level."
This is a welcome development, but what were they thinking when they made "daily" the only option in the Time Unit pulldown? I would think that I’m not the only one who wants the option to summarize geographical performance by week, month, year, etc. Right now my only choice is to download detail by day and then summarize by a broader time period. Doesn’t make sense.
I hope this is a goof, and I hope it doesn’t stay that way for long.
Update: Gordon Choi has a more detailed explanation of the story behind the limited date range option. Guess we have to accept the limitation and the reasons for it, but man, what a pain in the butt.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I am no expert, but when I tried geographic targeting of my Adwords campaign, I quickly learned that the “location” depended on your IP address and not all IP addresses actually equate to where you are. For example my PC at my office had an IP tied to a location in Texas, even though I am in Illinois. I was running local adword campaigns and could not figure out why I couldn’t see my ad from my computer. So, was my example really an anomly? Or is this common? Or am I totally wrong?
No Steve, you’re right. However, in the Tools section of your Adwords account you can use the Ads Preview tool to adjust the location so you can see ads as seen by the region you’re targeting.
My concern is this: How accurate is the targeting and how many potential clients am I missing if this is a wide-spread problem? My other thought is this: How much money am I wasting attracting out of area prospects and should not worry about capturing 100% of the prospects but pay more to make sure I am seen by 75%?
I’ve never seen data on percentage of geo-targeted prospects who might actually be outside the target area due to the IP issue, but I’m guessing it’s unlikely to be extremely high. If you’re able to include location in some of your ad copy variations, that could also minimize the clicks you pay for from unqualified prospects.