Anyone else having doubts about whether their ads are showing in the specific countries you have chosen?
Mike

I hadn't really thought about it. I've just been clicking US and PR and forgetting that the setting exists. The site we're promoting with AdWords doesn't have very many foreign visitors, but I'll have to start looking at logs again.

Thanks for creating more work for me.

No, really... I mean thanks. I love massive amounts of data scrolling by on my screen while it figures out sources of lines of my log file and who the referrer was.

Brian.

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ToolBarn.com, an Internet Retailer Top 500 and Inc. 500 Company | Tool Parts | Pet Supplies

I'm running adwords campaigns for clients who only operate within a given country (let's say Zambia). The system is brilliant in that it will show a highly relevant ad only to people based in Zambia ..... From my investigations, it works up to a point. It doesn't show it outside Zambia, BUT it doesn't show it to lots of people within Zambia - in other words the database system Google is using cannot accurately locate enough of the IP addresses. This has posed a big problem for us in Bahrain as 90% of the population use the local Telco (Batelco) but Google doesn't seem to place batelco's servers in Bahrain :-(
I have been battering them for more than a year on this and they keep losing interest, so I want to see if anyone else is having similar problems.
Mike

Mike,

Last year I was running a UK only campaign when I was located in the Netherlands (which mean't I couldn't view it). I got a few friends to check it for me and 17 out of 18 UK based people could see it and the 7 non-UK users couldn't see it. The one that worried me was the UKer who couldn't see it. I e-mailed google about it and they came back and said Whilst they tried to get all appropriate IP's set for the right country it wasn't always possible especially where they were cross boarder operators (Same company covering more than 1 country) or new operators. They said for the more regulated areas (there terminology) they expected +95% included and correct. However for other areas they could be a lot lower than that %.

For testing I also switched it on for the Netherlands one day and yep I could see the advertising. So it does work but maybe not so well in some areas.

carju1

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Oh well everyone else does it - http://www.jctdesigns.com - http://www.swanseawaterbeds.co.uk - http://www.bathsrus.com/

Carju1 .... when I was investigating this problem last year our techies showed me a way of spoofing which country you were in. So you could pretend you were in UK when you were in Netherlands and check your advert showed to UK users. Turned out that's how the Google help staff were checking it too. But I've forgotten what you do ... perhaps someone else knows.
Miked

Do a search for anonymous proxy and you should see some results. I've done this myself a couple of times to check some scripts on our own site. I was under the impression that anonymous proxies may be blocked from seeing any geo-matched ads, though.

I did check my logs like I said I was excited to do. I didn't find anything wrong in any of my AdWords referrals. Seems like it is probably working fairly well.

Satellite services seem to be blocked from all geo-matched ads, since they can't be tracked at all. I guess that's the way to handle it, just pretend it isn't in a country when you can't determine the country.

Brian.

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ToolBarn.com, an Internet Retailer Top 500 and Inc. 500 Company | Tool Parts | Pet Supplies

I don't like geo-targetting with Adsense because sometimes Google will display local ads on my site when none of my sites are local. This usually happens when I have the names of cities or states in my content.

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Fantasy Blitz

When comparing apples to apples, at least Adwords offers this service to limit your markets. Overture does not offer it yet.

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Static HTML Shopping Resource Promotion
Herbalife Products - ShapeWorks

You can "spoof" your location by using the AdSense Preview Tool.

See https://www.google.com/adsense/previewtool

Welcome to WPW Tim!!

Thanks, that's a great tool. I didn't know it existed... where have I been?

I've targeted geographic locations myself. I would personally come to the conclusion if they're not being seen, the market is probably slim in that area, I'm not getting impressions so it's irrelevant.

Find a new location...

I don't mean to sound cold (I say this with a warm smile on my face), I guess if that's your target audience and adwords isn't working for ya, find a new method of marketing.

Later,

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Matt Levenhagen - Affiliate Marketing & PPC Training | Niche Marketing Resources, Tips and Advice | Niche Marketing Memberships

mlevenhagen: I wouldn't day cold, I wold say smart.
Tim: Thanx from me as well...handy little link.

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