Adwords Editor Does Not Always Transfer Geo-Targeting Data

Dec 1, 2006 at 1:12pm ET by Barry Schwartz

Google’s AdWords Editor program, which makes it easy to perform account management of your campaigns directly from your desktop, may come with one large pitfall. Simon Heseltine reports that while performing campaign maintenance on his account, he noticed that impressions and clicks data was much higher than normal. After further investigation, he learned that it was a geo-targeting issue. Google replied saying;

Currently within AdWords Editor, campaigns using regional targeting may revert to targeting “All Countries and Territories” upon being transferred from one account to another… I understand you were unaware of this feature…

I am very surprised by this response.

Related Topics: Google: AdWords

About The Author: Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here. For more background information on Barry, see his full bio over here. See more articles by Barry Schwartz

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Interesting, thanks for the warning. AdWords Editor has been a boon companion to our media buyers but the only other surprise they’ve discovered is a hidden maximum of 40 characters in a URL field somewhere (can’t remember the exact field, sorry). Direct AdWords access has no such limit.
Bartek Krzemień

Just for the record, Simon mentioned also “They then went on to give us a credit for that day on all clicks during the affected time (about $200)”.
Grzegorz

Hi!
I am not suprised at all.
Once there was an odd situation on my account at Google AdWords – ads where not displaing. I’ve checked every possibility – my settings where 100% ok. So I asked Google to give me back my money (by filling a form). It was 5 months ago. Since then no response, no money.