Ask the Search Expert: How Do I Create Global SEM Campaigns on the Yahoo! Bing Network?

Want to tailor your search engine marketing campaigns to target different languages and countries? The Search Experts offers beaucoup proven tips.

Editor's Note: Where can you go for answers to all your Search Engine Marketing questions, quandaries, doubts, and dilemmas? Where else but “Ask the Search Expert,” our regular Ad Blog series featuring SEM experts from our crack Yahoo! Search Account Management team. Today, one of our ace SEM creative strategists steps up to answer a common question from a search advertiser.

Dear Search Expert:

I run a business called “World’s Best Chocolate,” and as you might expect, we have lots of global appeal. To take advantage of this, I want to create search campaigns on the Yahoo! Bing Network that target multiple countries and people who speak different languages, but I’m not sure how to set this up in my Bing Ads account. Can you please show me the way?

Anxious to go Global
Answer:

Dear Anxious:

Sweet timing! We’re focused on growing our worldwide presence, too. Last November, we expanded the Yahoo! Bing Network to seven new markets in Europe and six new markets in Latin America, giving us a presence in 22 countries on four continents. That’s a tremendous opportunity to get your products in front of a global audience, and it’s a snap to go global. Using Bing Ads’ user interface or editor tools, you can easily expand your search campaigns to several global marketplaces and users who speak different languages. Here are some tips and best practices to get you started.

Select your language settings

When you’re creating a new ad group, the first step is to choose which language you want to use to communicate to your potential customers. This setting specifies the language for a single ad group and cannot be changed after the ad group is created. However, you can select different languages for different ad groups within a campaign. The charts below show which languages and market codes to use in specific global markets.

Choose your location targeting options

You can determine which physical locations to include or exclude at either the campaign or ad group level. This allows you to focus a campaign or ad group on potential customers within a specific location based on the following parameters:

• All locations worldwide

• In selected cities; designated market areas (DMAs, U.S. only); metro areas in the U.K., Canada and France; states and provinces; and countries and regions

• Proximity to a particular business, landmark, zip code, or coordinates

These advanced location options let you decide whether you want to:

• Show ads to people in, searching for, or viewing pages about your targeted location. Your ads will appear for anyone in your targeted location, along with people in other locations who are searching or viewing Web pages about your targeted location.

• Show ads to people in your targeted location. Your ads will only be shown to people in your targeted areas. This option is best suited for businesses focusing on local services.

If you don’t select any location targets, the default setting is “worldwide.” The chart below details where your ads will show based on your language setting and the worldwide default setting. You can always check where your ads are showing, and how they are performing in each location by using the Geographical Location Report.

Use these tips for better targeting
Once you’ve set up your new global campaigns, here are some proven tips to help them succeed:

• Be consistent: Your ads, keywords, and landing pages should match your audience language. This will ensure your message is being understood by your target audience and will also avoid editorial issues.

• Check your language: Don’t just use an automatic translator to create ads in different languages. Make sure your ads make sense and are compelling by having them reviewed by a native speaker.

• Monitor performance by targeted location: Optimize ads, keywords, and landing pages to reflect the needs of each marketplace

• Apply incremental bidding: Setting incremental bids by user location allows you to focus your spending more effectively. For example, if you target your ads to the U.S. and Canada, and notice you get better CPA from users in the U.S. users, you can increase bids for users physically in the U.S. to optimize your ROI.

• Increase your reach: Target more relevant users by opting to show ads to people in, searching for, or viewing pages about your targeted location. This will make sure you’re reaching users who are searching for location-based products and services.

• Manage campaign budgets by country: Given time zone differences, a campaign can deplete its entire daily budget in one country before getting a chance to serve in another. Ensure the campaigns have sufficient budget to serve in the selected countries or consider separating the campaigns by country to manage each country’s budget separately

I hope these tips help “World’s Best Chocolate” go global in a big way (By the way, I accept free samples). For more information, please don’t hesitate to reach out to your account team. They’re pretty sweet too!

--- Tina Soares Sherer, Sr. SEM Creative Strategist at Yahoo!