Google says that they are accurate in identifying only about 35% of “local” traffic. This means if you run ads to your local market there is a good chance that 65% of your target audience will never see your ads.

Including your city and state in national ads will also reduce the likelihood of someone outside your area clicking your ad.

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I think most of us do the basics with our SEM campaigns, grouping phrases and then those phrases with related ads (such as marketing: internet marketing, web marketing, and services: SEM services, PPC Services…). However a recent exercise I went through yielded big benefits.

Now let me preface this by saying I don’t advocate the use of click through rates to determine the effectiveness of an ad. I always look for some kind of conversion metric to use. You may be thinking that you don’t have a conversion metric, but even if it’s just measuring visits to your contact page, you need something to ensure that you are doing more then just getting people to your click on your ad. (more…)