Yahoo Sponsored Search introduces Geo-Specific Ad targeting
A longstanding problem for online advertisers has been that the Internet is simply too broad an advertising tool for many companies. In the grand scheme of things very few traditional companies actually need to reach a worldwide or even national audience. There is no real reason, for instance, why a hairdresser with three branches in Inverness really needs to have its online advertising viewed by people in Portsmouth.
For this reason, search engines have started introducing geo-specific ad targeting features. It seems like an obvious thing to do, so it’s surprising that until very recently only Ask, who allow you to target ads via certain zip/postal codes, and Google, who allow you to draw actual target areas on a map, were actually doing this.
That list has recently grown by one, with Yahoo dragging its ailing search engine into the local advertising fray. Disappointingly for some however, they have chosen to follow the Ask model and do so by allowing users to pick postcodes, rather than develop something like Google’s system which is thought by many to be much more precise.
It’s a good move for Yahoo, which should see them collect a decent number of new users, not just from the small business community but also from bigger companies looking to target geographically for other reasons – maybe looking for regions where people have a higher disposable income.
That notwithstanding, it’ll take more than relatively small new initiatives like this to avoid the widely predicted Yahoo meltdown.
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