Granularity is an important concept for many PPC accounts today. In fact, the way you segment your campaigns and ad groups can have a huge effect on key metrics like conversion volume and CPA. This granular segmentation is particularly useful for those larger accounts that drive a lot of volume and spend quickly. After successfully testing this on one of my larger PPC accounts, I’ve really come to appreciate granular targeting strategies and here’s why:
The Situation
I’d been working with a client in the automotive equipment industry and had been looking for ways to expand reach and decrease CPA. Initially, we had set up two generic campaigns that were targeting both the US and Canada. Traffic volume was great, but something had to be done since the CPA was steep and difficult to control.
After learning that Canada had been driving several profitable leads, we wanted to expand our Canadian market as soon as possible. Rather than simply adding the new geo targets to the generic campaigns, I recommended that we segment our efforts and target these provinces exclusively with new campaigns. So I ended up doing exactly that by simply replicating the two generic campaigns for each respective province and tweaking the campaign targeting settings. Here’s what it looked like:
BEFORE
AFTER
The Results
I’ve been running with the new geo-specific campaigns for about two months now and the results have been substantial:
Despite a 43% decrease in CPA, conversions increased by 151% compared to where we were initially! Obviously this was a huge win for this particular client, but I’ve found this strategy to be quite successful in a few of our other accounts here at Hanapin as well. This is why it is important to pay close attention to your most profitable geographic areas and target your PPC campaigns accordingly.
If you’re unsure of how to go about finding your most profitable locations, AdWords and Analytics offer actionable data and reports that can help. In the example above, the AdWords Dimensions tab proved to be a great resource as shown below:
In addition to the Dimensions tab, Analytics also offers detailed location information that can be viewed on several levels (country/city/etc.) in the Map Overlay report as shown below:
Closing Thoughts
Considering how easy it was to replicate the new campaigns and change the geo targeting settings, I would recommend this tactic to anyone with a larger account. Although the results may not be this drastic for everyone, this strategy has nonetheless proved to be an extremely effective way to decrease CPA and increase volume simultaneously.
In closing, I’d like to ask if any of you have tried similar strategies in your own PPC accounts? How did you set up and geo-target your campaigns? What were the results? It would be awesome to hear about some of your experiences, so feel free to share those below. As always, thanks for reading!
