According to a post on Google Adwords site yesterday, Google recently changed its metro targeting areas to Nielsen DMA (Designated Market Areas) regions.
“Now your online campaigns and reporting will more precisely match TV-based audience data and campaigns. If you’ve been using metros, you’ll notice that the new geographic shapes look different on a map,”While you might see some increases or decreases in traffic with the new regions, we estimate the impact will be small for most advertisers.”
“Today, advertisers in Canada, the US and 9 other countries have even better local targeting options with AdWords.”
As for the US Google says:
“We’ve recently changed our U.S. metro targeting areas to Nielsen® DMA® (Designated Market Areas) regions. Now your online campaigns and reporting will more precisely match TV-based audience data and campaigns. If you’ve been using metros, you’ll notice that the new geographic shapes look different on a map. While you might see some increases or decreases in traffic with the new regions, we estimate the impact will be small for most advertisers.”
“As always, if your business has a fixed service radius and you want to more tightly target a campaign to that area, we recommend using the radius targeting option to identify and select specific cities and postal codes to reach.”
For Canada “you can now reach over 1,500 Canadian Postal Code FSAs, the first three digits of the Canadian Postal Code. ”
“Now you’ll be able to plan, buy and get reporting with AdWords the same way you do with direct mail. Plus, with the “Bulk locations” tab in the AdWords location targeting tool, you’ll be able to easily enter up to 1,000 locations per country at a time.”
We’re adding city and region targeting options in the following nine countries:
Belgium (city), Bulgaria (region & city), Denmark (city), India (city), Ireland (city), Romania (region & city), Sweden (region & city), Taiwan (city), Vietnam (city)
“That brings our full list of countries with city level targeting up to 43.”
“Also new to Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, India, Sweden, and Taiwan are location extensions. Location extensions show your closest business address and phone number along with your search ad, making it easier for customers to visit or call.”
“So let’s say you are a manufacturer in India and sell through retailers in many cities across the country. You can now analyze your performance by city using the AdWords geographic report. You might see that you’re getting a better conversion rate and larger order sizes in big cities like Delhi and Mumbai. So you create a supplemental campaign just targeting Delhi and Mumbai with higher bids and distinct budgets. Next, you set up location extensions to show your local sales office locations in each city. And you use location insertion to add “Mumbai” or “Delhi” to the end of your visible URL whenever your ads show in that city to help make your business feel even more local. You’re now set up to get more clicks, conversions, visits and phone calls to help your business grow where it matters most.”
