AdWords Adds Geo-Targeting Options in 11 Countries, Including Canadian Postal Codes

Aug 28, 2012 at 6:26pm ET by Pamela Parker

Google is introducing some new geographical targeting options and tweaking others within AdWords, including making the switch to Nielsen DMAs for US metro areas and releasing postal code targeting for Canada. The changes come as the company rolls out city-level targeting and location extensions to new countries.

In the US, the change means goodbye to metro area targeting and hello to designated marketing area (DMA) targeting, a means of delineating media markets trademarked by Nielsen. The switch means marketers advertising both online and on television will be able to reach the same people, if they target the same DMA on both media.

Though Google says there may be some changes in traffic due to the new regions, the company expects the impact to be minor for most advertisers.

In Canada, Google is introducing the ability to target by Canadian Postal Code FSAs, the first three digits of the postal code, which correspond to a certain geographic area. (FSA stands for forward sortation area.) This change, similarly to the introduction of ZIP codes in the US, allows direct marketers to coordinate their online and direct mail efforts to reach the same people.

Elsewhere in the world, AdWords will now have city and regional targeting capabilities in nine new countries. These include: Belgium (city), Bulgaria (region & city), Denmark (city), India (city), Ireland (city), Romania (region & city), Sweden (region & city), Taiwan (city), Vietnam (city).

Location extensions, which allow advertisers to show their nearest location and phone number along with a search ad, will now be available in six new countries — Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, India, Sweden, and Taiwan.

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Google: AdWords | Google: Maps & Local | Top News

About The Author: Pamela Parker is a contributing editor for Search Engine Land and Executive Features Editor at Marketing Land. She’s a well-respected authority on digital marketing, having reported and written on the subject since 1998, including a stint as managing editor of ClickZ. She’s also worked to help monetize independent publishers’ sites at Federated Media Publishing. She blogs about media and marketing at The River and about cooking, gardening and parenthood at Free Range. She can be found on Twitter as @pamelaparker. See more articles by Pamela Parker

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http://twitter.com/Jason_Faber Jason Faber

Great improvements, opening a lot of doors for specific targeting strategies in Canada. Looking forward to brainstorming with these!
Mark Johnson

will the rest of the world (more specifically the UK) get post code targeting?
http://twitter.com/Ericsreviews Eric Manson

Nice I like information, this will open the door for may options in the marketing world.
http://twitter.com/Chris_Wanger Chris Wanger

Based in Ireland this is welcome news to be able to target at the city level. However, as I blogged, http://www.visibility.ie/blog/?p=118 there are seemingly problems with the population numbers they are providing for reach.
http://profiles.google.com/mmenterprises.india M.M. Enterprises

This is very good & nice update by Google, it is very useful for local address found i like your post, thanks to sharing nice info regarding AdWords Adds Geo-Targeting Options in 11 Countries.