Optimizing Language and Location Targeting

Overview of Optimizing Language and Location Targeting

It's key that you choose the right targeting options for each of your ad campaigns. This helps keep your ads effective and your return on investment high. By choosing the right targeting, you will be able to reach your potential customers in the areas you serve or do business in.

Your ads are targeted to reach a certain audience based on the language targeting and location targeting you chose. With this information, AdWords works to ensure that your ad appears to your chosen audience.

To help assess where and who you should target, answer these questions:

• Where does your business sell or provide services?
• Who is your intended audience?

All advertisers must choose a language and location to target, so it's important to understand what's right for you. Be sure to target only the languages and locations that are relevant for your business. For example, if you ship your products to locations within a certain distance of your business, target just that region. If your ads are written in French, target only users who speak French. By targeting the right audience, you'll make sure that your ads appear only to people who are potential customers.

Note that your location targeting settings will affect your ads on the Display Network as well as on Google. For example, if your ad targets France, it will not be shown to users in Japan, regardless of whether the user is searching Google or browsing a website in the Display Network.

Tools and Strategies for Optimizing Language and Location Targeting

It's important to set your ad targeting to reflect where and with whom you do business. Here are some ways to optimize your targeting.

Target the right language for your business

• Single language - Target the language in which your ad is written. For example, if your ad is written in English, target English-speaking users. Remember that Google won't translate your ad for you.
• Multiple languages - If you want to target more than one language, create a separate campaign for each language.
• Combine with location targeting - As people speak many different languages in many different locations, language targeting also gives you an excellent way to reach your users even if they are physically located in non-native areas. For example, if you are a company based in the UK and want to target the English-speaking population of Spain, you can set your country targeting to Spain and your language targeting to English. When we detect that a certain user in Spain speaks English, your ad can be shown. We recommend creating separate campaigns for each country and language pair. This will ensure that wherever your potential customers are located, they will see your ads in their language.

Target the right location for your business

• Country targeting - Target countries or territories if your business or website serves a wide audience across one or more countries. This option is best suited for businesses whose services or products are available nationwide or internationally.
• Region and city targeting - Target regions and cities if your business serves specific geographic areas or if you want different advertising messages in different regions. With region and city targeting, you might receive more qualified clicks from a smaller, more relevant population. Region and city targeting is best used by advertisers whose audience is concentrated in defined areas.
• Customized targeting - Target customized areas if your ad is relevant only to a very precise geographic area where you do business. With customized targeting, your ads will only appear to customers searching for results within (or are themselves located within) the area you define. Customized targeting is best suited for advertisers with an audience in very specific areas.

Targeting by Country and Territory

It's common for new advertisers to target all available countries and territories in the hope of widening their reach. However, you should only consider this option if you offer services or products to users in one or more countries or territories. If you have a global business, it would make sense to target all countries and territories, ensuring that your campaigns get exposure across the world.

For example, if you sell a product and can ship to anyone nationwide, you might target your campaign to the entire country. This option is good for national businesses and online retailers who sell and ship to customers nationwide. However, even these types of businesses might not want to target an entire country if they want to promote local branches, use region-specific ad text, target special offers to certain locations, or measure the success of their ads in each region separately.

Targeting Internationally

International targeting means that you target more than one location. For example, a business might want to target several countries where customers speak the same language (such as targeting English speakers in the United States, Canada, and Australia). Consider setting up a separate campaign for each main location (such as each country) and selecting the relevant language for each campaign. By creating separate geographic campaigns, you'll make it easier to manage your account and track each region's return-on-investment. It also means that you can create very customized and targeted campaigns by tailoring your keywords and ad text to each individual market. Make sure that your keyword list and ad text for each ad group is in one language. This ensures that the ad appears in the same language in which the keyword was entered. For example, if a user enters a keyword in Japanese, the ad will appear in Japanese.