New Advanced Location Options in AdWords

Have you noticed the new advanced location options under your AdWords campaign settings? Previously, your ads were targeted by either a physical location you selected or by a user query. For example, if you chose to to target the the city of Springfield, Illinois, someone would see your ads if they were located in Springfield, or if they were outside of Springfield but typed in a location specific query, such as 'Springfield it help.'

Now, you have the option to further refine location targeting. Advertisers can now target by either physical location and search intent, or both. This is especially useful for types of businesses who find that they get lower value clicks from outside their target physical location, or for city names that exist in multiple different states. Springfield, for example, is a city in several different states in the US.

To enable this feature, go to your AdWords campaign settings and under 'Location Targeting' click on 'Advanced location options.'

March Search Engine Rankings

comScore just released their March search engine rankings, and Google remains strong on top with 65.7%  market share.  Make sure to budget your ad spend accordingly.

AdWords Display URLs Now All Lower Case

Have you noticed that AdWords changed they way they show ad display URLs? They are now all lowercase, regardless of how you set-it up in your account.  Before the change, you were able to inter-capitalize an ad's display URL ExampleURL.com. After the change, it will show as exampleurl.com in your ad. Apparently, the AdWords team did internal testing and found that lowercase Display URLs help increase CTR.  The data was conclusive enough to overturn the previous best practice of inter-capitalization.