AdCenter no longer cares about your city. The good news is that the “you” I’m referring to probably wouldn’t read this article, as that “you” is statistically insignificant (at least in the world of internet marketing).
To elaborate, in a recent blog post AdCenter announced that they are removing over 10,000 cities from their targeting options. Two things to note about this large-seeming change that actually really isn’t that big:
- This will not go into effect until mid to late May
- (And this one’s the more important of the two notes) This change will have no negative impact on campaign performance.
Why no negative impact, you ask? (This time I’m referring to a “you” that is actually reading this article.) The cities that are being removed have seen no measurable traffic. The post doesn’t specify a time frame, so let’s just go with forever. Over the entirety of the Internet, no one from these over 10,000 cities has interacted with the Yahoo/Bing network. Not a single person.
They have put together a list of all of the cities that are affected in their post, so if you’re curious about just how small your town is, check it out. That same list provides three options for nearby cities that will be supported after the AdCenter Great Small City Purge of 2012. All you need to do is pick one of the three nearby cities to target instead. So, it’s apparent that AdCenter really does care about your city, “you” that isn’t reading this article. The opening line of this post was semi-libelous and I apologize for my dramatic phrasing.
Action items for us in “the Biz” (as we refer to our profession inside the hallowed halls of PPC Hero):
-Campaigns and ad groups that only target the soon-to-be-purged cities will be paused and the default target will be set to worldwide.
-If you target these baby cities in concert with larger ones, the larger ones will remain in place without you needing to do a thing
If you’re one of the unlucky souls with a campaign targeted to Shawnee Mound, Missouri (and only Shawnee Mound, Missouri) and you don’t update to one of the supported cities beforehand, you’ll notice a campaign or ad group paused where it wasn’t paused before. All you need to do is add one of the supported cities to your target list and then unpause your campaign.
Also, be aware that according to Bing you no longer live in Shawnee Mound, Missouri. You now live in Leeton, Missouri (or Chilhowee, Missouri {or Calhoun, Missouri}). I’d probably choose Chilhowee, myself. But it’s up to you.
It isn’t a massive change (like this bad boy from last week ), but it seems like a logical one that will help in the long run. In some cases too much granularity can become a problem to manage, and when there’s no traffic to back up a targeting method, all the better.
Finally, and this is a personal favor requested from your humble news reporter, if you live in one of the soon-to-be-vanquished cities please drop a note in the comments below. PPC Hero seeks to give voice to the voiceless, and people from cities that don’t register a blip on Bing’s version of the Internet are voiceless indeed. What does it feel like to be wiped from the face of AdCenter?
