Google Adwords offers inaccurate local PPC listings

11th January 2010 by William Hobson

The GeoAttribution of Google’s PPC search engine marketing service, Adwords, is reportedly flawed as Search Engine Journal reports that it returns inaccurate geolocation results for Adwords visitors.

Brian Carter of Search Engine Journal reports that localised AdWords campaigns may be being targeted in unwanted areas thanks to flaws in Google’s GeoAttribution. By testing the report service with an Adwords campaign limited to South Carolina, Carter found inaccuracies between the AdWords geographic report and two other Geolocation report services. Whilst the Google report claimed that 100% of all clicks were from South Carolina, the independent reports revealed that visitors actually came from 38 US states other than South Carolina – and only 12.2% of clicks originated there.

Carter believes that the problems with the GeoAttribution feature stem from the relationship between query parsing and geotargeting in Adwords. He says that “query parsing is somehow trumping IP-based geolocation in both reporting and ad serving”.

This will be of interest to any PPC agency which uses the AdWords service for localised search engine marketing. Carter suggests that not only are localised adverts being offered to visitors from outside the defined area – thus wasting money on PPC bids that fall outside of the planned campaign – and worse, the AdWords report tool is providing inaccurate data that obscures this.

“Adword users need to understand why they’re getting inaccurate geolocation information and make sure they adjust their advertising efforts accordingly” said Carter on Search Engine Journal, “and be sure NOT to segment their ads in accordance with inaccurate info”.

Carter advocates that Google offers the option for AdWords users to turn off query parsing in their campaign as a limited, short-term solution. He recommends that users link another analytics package to their AdWords campaigns for accurate geographical data.

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