Geo optimization in Paid Search

MSN Search is light years ahead of the other engines due to demographic and regional bid optimization. Different from targeting, MSN Search allows you to simply bid more or less aggressively to target profiles helping large brands reach all search users while appearing more prominently for key audiences. Consider:

Geo targeting Brand A a national brand has strong presence in the Southwest United States. They want to continue to reach all users searching for “shoes” and have two possible goals with their campaign:
– Driving product sales. Since Brand A is strong in the Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, they bid more aggressively in those states to reach those consumers.
– Increasing brand awareness. Being weak in the rest of the country, they maintain consistent bid levels in the southwest but bid more elsewhere to appear more prominently to the rest of the country.

Incidentally, if you aren’t considering the impact paid search has on your brand, reconsider! Paid Search is best for performance based advertising and demand gen but users feel differently about the brand strength of a company depending on where they appear. First couple positions suggests a strong brand.

Did you know? Yahoo is developing Geo and Demographic targeting for Y! Search. That said, forthcoming targeting options through Yahoo Panama are not the same though provide a different opportunity. We’ll save that for another day.