Marketers: Improve Your Google Ads CTRs with Geo Ads Customizers

By Northwoods Team

August 18, 2020

4 Minute Read

There are several advanced features in Google Ads that are likely overlooked by most marketers. One of those features is called “Geo Ads Customizers,” which allows the advertiser to dynamically insert a user’s location in the ad copy.

This type of feature can be very useful in certain situations. For example, if you own a custom gifts company that has next day shipping to select cities throughout the U.S., it would be beneficial to run a dynamic text ad only to those select locations and include the name of the location in the ad copy. When a user searches for “custom gifts” and they are in Jackson, Wyoming, for example, the ad could read: “Custom Gifts | Next Day Shipping to Jackson | Shop Today.” The applications for this technology are vast and will likely improve your click through rate, as your ads are now more relevant to the end consumer.

Another example of when this ad type would be useful is if you are a manufacturer and have dealers in many locations throughout the U.S. that you are trying to drive traffic to. You might ask, “why not just set up a different ad group with a different location for every dealer throughout the U.S.?” The answer is two-fold; one, because if there are more than about a dozen dealers, it can become cumbersome to set up, manage, and optimize all of those ad groups. The other is that Google optimizes better with volume, and grouping fragmented audiences together when applicable can allow for better optimized results in the long run.

Examples and Resources for Setup

Check out this article from Metric Theory with tips for setting up your geo-targeted campaigns.

You can also look at some of Google’s resources on ad customizers here.

Also, this YouTube video does a great job of explaining how to set up dynamic location insertion, aka geo ad customizers. You can check out the link here.

Location Types to Target

Once you get an understanding of how to set up your ad customizers in Google Ads, the next question becomes: which locations do you want use as “geo targets”? Google gives a pretty extensive list of all the “Target Types” that you can include in your ads. The list below is taken from here.

Airport
Autonomous Community *
Borough
Canton *
City *
City Region
Congressional District *
Country *
County *
Department *
District
Governorate *
Municipality *
National Park
Neighborhood
Okrug
Postal Code
Prefecture *
Province *
Region *
State *
Territory *
TV Region *
Union Territory *
University

*Supported in TargetingIdeaService

You may be wondering what some of these terms mean and when you might use them. We made a chart breaking down each location type with examples and short definitions to help you out.

Target Type	Example Taken From Google's Active Geo Targets in 2020	Number in U.S.	Use Case Examples	Definition	Notes
Airport	O'Hare International Airport	173	Targeting people traveling at the beginning or end of a trip. Could be useful to catch their attention.
Autonomous Community				Political and administrative division	Used in Spain
Borough	Manhattan, New York	23	Use alongside neighborhood campaigns	An incorporated municipality smaller than a city
Canton					Used in Switzerland
City	New York, New York	16,404	Likely one of the most useful geo targets in the United States. This allows marketers to create a very relevant text dynamically around the United States or World.	An inhabited place of greater size, population, or importance than a town or village
City Region	South Los Angeles	1	Not very useful in the U.S.	Metropolitan area and hinterland	Commonly used in Australia, Pakistan, and other parts of the world.
Congressional District	AZ-1,Arizona,United States	436	Political campaigns	an electoral constituency that elects a single member of a congress
Country
County	Summit County, Colorado	3,098	Useful alongside City campaigns
Department	*Not an option in USA				Exists only in Bolivia
District	Foggy Bottom, District of Columbia	1		An area, region, or section with a distinguishing character
Governorate	*Not an option in USA	0		An administrative division of a country.	Exists in Egypt, Kuwait, Oman, Lebanon, Jordan, Yemen, Tunisia
Municipality	Leland Township, Michigan, United States	128	Use alongside "city" campaigns	A city or town that has corporate status and local government
National Park	Hawaii Volcanoes National Park	57	Targeting people interested in outdoors, conservationalists, while they may be vacationing etc.	A scenic or historically important area of countryside protected by the federal government for the enjoyment of the general public or the preservation of wildlife
Neighborhood	Pebble Beach, California	1,504	To target at a higher level than in a city. If you have multiple locations within a city and want to be relevant to customers - this may be the best option.	A district, especially one forming a community within a town or city
Okrug	*Not an option in USA			Roughly "area" "district" or "region"	Exists only in Russia
Postal Code	90210	31828		Locations defined for the purpose of sorting the mail
Prefecture	*Not an option in USA	0			Exists only in Japan and Central African Republic
Province	*Not an option in USA	0		A principal administrative division of certain countries	Exists all over the world outside of the U.S.
Region	Silicon Valley	2			Mostly an option outside of U.S.
State	Alaska, United States	51			Not the most useful geo target option
University	University of Colorado Boulder	169	To create relevant ads to college students. This could be useful for any company trying to target this demographic.

At first, geo targets may seem overwhelming, and hopefully our chart helps to clarify some questions you may have about Google’s available Target Types. Ultimately, the regions you target and the customized message you send is up to you. Good luck!

Most marketers unknowingly overlook several advanced features in Google Ads. Find out if you're one of them here: https://bit.ly/2Q6KfIf @northwoods #GoogleAds #GeoAdCustomizers