Yahoo! has announced that they’ve opened up geo-targeting options for their paid search program to allow targeting of users at a country, city or zip code level. The changes make it easier to pinpoint local customers and also transfer campaigns across the Google and Yahoo! platforms.

In case you’re not aware, geo-targeting is a feature in pay-per-click advertising programs that allows advertisers to target their ads to only show in a specific region. For example, say you’re a mechanic in New York; you wouldn’t want to be advertising to people in Los Angeles, so you can set your ad to show to New York searches only.

Yahoo’s old geo-targeting options were too broad and it was hard to target specific regions, especially in popular cities. The country, city and zip code targeting is much more specific and brings the targeting options closer to Google with its latitude/longitude and polygon mapping options. From the Yahoo! Search marketing blog:

You will find geo-targeting when you sign up for your account online, but you may go back in and change your scope at any time. To do this, select “Geo-Targeting” under your Campaigns tab in your account.:

- Click the “Campaigns” tab. – Choose a campaign. – Click the “Campaign Settings” drop-down located in the upper right-hand corner (above the graph). – Select “Geo-Targeting.”

From there you can use the pulldown to select your target area by Entire Market, Country, State/Province, DMA , City or ZIP code. A map will provide a visual of the areas you are selecting.

Keep in mind that the tighter your geographic focus, the fewer searches you’ll be targeting. If you’re looking for more tips on PPC advertising, download our free whitepaper.

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