Should I Expand the Area I’m Focusing on to Combat the ‘Limited by Search Volume’ Issue?

Short Answer: Expanding the geographic area you target may actually lower your conversion rate instead of helping with low search volume. A better approach is to create separate campaigns for nearby towns, which makes your ads more relevant to each specific audience.

Full Explanation

When dealing with the challenge of limited search volume, it can be tempting to simply widen the geographic area you target in your advertising campaigns. However, this strategy can backfire by reducing the relevance of your ads to people watching them. Relevance plays a crucial role in conversion rates; if your ads are less specific to the audience’s location, users may be less likely to engage or convert.

Rather than broadening your focus to a larger area, it’s more effective to keep your targeting precise. This means crafting distinct campaigns that each focus on individual nearby towns or localities. By doing so, each campaign’s message and targeting remain tightly aligned with the interests and needs of the local audience it serves.

Step-by-Step Breakdown

  1. Identify nearby towns where you want to expand your reach instead of lumping them all into one wide area.
  2. Create separate campaigns for each town to maintain local relevance.
  3. Tailor your ads in each campaign to fit the specific characteristics or preferences of that town’s audience.
  4. Monitor conversion rates for each campaign to ensure that relevance is maintaining or improving performance.

Real Examples

While no specific examples were provided, the principle applies broadly. Instead of targeting a large regional area, setting up campaigns for each surrounding town ensures that the ads you run are directly relevant to the people there. This localized approach helps your campaign resonate better with searchers and improves your ad’s effectiveness.

Common Mistakes

  • Expanding the geographic area too broadly: This can dilute the relevance of your ads, lowering conversion rates.
  • Failing to segment campaigns: Treating different towns as one homogenous area misses opportunities to tailor messaging.
  • Ignoring conversion impact: Not tracking how expanding or segmenting affects conversions can lead to ineffective campaigns.

FAQs

Won’t expanding the area increase overall reach?
While it may increase reach, the broader targeting often decreases ad relevance, which can actually harm conversion rates.
Is it complicated to manage multiple campaigns?
Managing distinct campaigns requires more setup and oversight but helps improve ad relevance and performance.
What if some towns have very low search volume?
You can still create campaigns for those towns; relevance is more important than just expanding to cover low-demand areas in one campaign.

Key Takeaways

  • Expanding your target area isn’t always the best solution for limited search volume.
  • Creating separate campaigns for each nearby town preserves ad relevance and can improve conversion rates.
  • Focused, localized campaigns resonate better with audiences and lead to stronger performance.
  • Always monitor conversion rates to understand the impact of your geographic targeting strategy.