One of my clients asked me this question a few weeks ago, and the short and direct answer is “NO.”
However, there is a work-around to exclude certain geographic areas from your Google campaign.
To properly address the available techniques, let’s step back for a moment and revisit the overall functionality of AdWords’ location settings.
If that’s old hat for you, please feel free to scroll straight down to “The Workaround.”
Location Settings
The “Settings” options within the Google AdWords campaign control interface allow you to set up very well-defined geographic areas in which to show your Google ads.
When setting up a new AdWords campaign, you will see the settings page first. Click on “Select one or more other locations”…
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…and the location selector window will open.
(If you want to modify an existing campaign, just click on the “Settings” tab, and you will get to the same page to make your adjustments retroactively. The link to click is called “Edit” then instead of “Select one or more other locations.”)
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First undo the default settings, U.S. and Canada bundled together, by either uncheck box (A) or delete the selected locations by clicking the red [X] next to them (B).
Choose the “Browse” tab on top (C).
Browsing offers more flexibility and control over your target area. You can pick individual states or even metro areas in a state. To expand each country and state and see the options within, click the [+] sign next to them.
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In this example I chose Metro Atlanta, Georgia. You will notice, though, that metro areas are quite flexible in Google’s view. Metro Atlanta, for example, expands well into the neighboring state of Alabama.
To drill down further and narrow your targeted area even more, you can expand the metro area entries (again, the [+] next to the location name) and choose the individual cities in which you would like your ads to appear.
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While this method is accurate and very surgical, it does not always provide the geographical coverage you may seek. In the example above you can see how some cities overlap while other areas on the map are left blank. The cities of Sandy Springs, Dunwoody and Doraville, among others, are not listed as separate cities in Google’s submenu on the left, therefore leaving out a large section of the suburban area north of Atlanta as potential target areas. Clearly a shortcoming of the “Browse” method.
To cover such unlisted locations and exert even more control about the regions in which you would like your Google ads to show, you need to utilize the “Custom” tab.
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Here you can pinpoint any location, be it the center of a ZIP code (A) or any arbitrary location chosen with the pin function (B), and have AdWords draw a circle around that point with the radius you specify (C). Now, Google AdWords will display your ads to any person searching for your chosen keywords from within this circle shape.
The Workaround
To finally address our initial question of ZIP code exclusion in AdWords, there are two possible routes to go.
First, you can employ the radius method and arrange several circles of coverage in such a fashion that the areas you would like to exclude are not lying within your circles, such as North Druid Hills in the example below.
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To add even more precision, a second method is available: custom shapes.
Click the “Custom shape” link within the “Custom” tab. This link functions more or less like an additional tab within the tab.
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The new interface allows you to place as many anchor points as you wish in order to create your own custom geographic area. For this example I selected most of Atlanta as well as the highway corridors, but excluded the northwest.
Using this method, you can practically draw along any boundaries, be it ZIP codes, county lines or congressional district lines, just to name a few, and set up areas within which your ads will be shown, meaning the computer somebody is using to access Google needs to be located within this area.
To close your custom shape, the last anchor point needs to be placed on top of the first one, and your area will be highlighted.
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Click “Save” and move on to optimize the remainder of your campaigns settings.
If you are not fully familiar with Google AdWords settings in general, you may find this video on Setting Up a Google AdWords Account useful.
As always, for more details on AdWords or Google Done Right, please feel free to add a comment or drop me a line any time.
:.)
Posted by sk on September 19th, 2010 :: Filed under
AdWords (Advanced),
AdWords Settings / Interface
