A technology that filters foreign traffic and focuses on U.S. leads in search advertising is aiding some search engine marketers.
Search marketer SearchAdNetwork, Denver, works with Searchfeed, a pay-per-click search engine advertising company, to better target the ads of SearchAdNetwork's clients.
Searchfeed's geotargeting tool lets SearchAdNetwork filter traffic to its clients' Web sites from countries outside the United States for companies that don't use U.S. leads. Clients can choose other variations by country, such as to receive traffic and leads from the United Kingdom and United States, but not from Canada. For a U.S. company selling car insurance, for example, a UK lead would not help the company if it sold insurance only to U.S. clients.
“This is a huge benefit to our clients, as the majority are U.S.-based companies, and foreign country leads are not valid,” said Samantha Pope, campaign manager at SearchAdNetwork. “We no longer have to charge clients for foreign clicks and leads, which have a negative effect on the overall campaign performance.”
SearchAdNetwork says the geotargeting tool has improved lead generation for clients by 25 percent to 30 percent.
Most small to midsize search engines don't offer geotargeting tools, Pope said, but major engines such as Google and Yahoo provide more localized leads for marketers.
Searchfeed is evaluating technology to expand its geotargeting tool by adding the ability to drill down target areas to U.S. states as well as other countries, such as certain European and South American countries that are “really developing [online] markets,” said Rachel Lyubovitzkky, vice president at Searchfeed.
Christine Blank covers online marketing and advertising, including e-mail marketing and paid search, for DM News and DMNews.com. To keep up with the latest developments in these areas, subscribe to our daily and weekly e-mail newsletters by visiting www.dmnews.com/newsletters
