Capitalizing on hyper-local PPC targeting tactics is a good way to bring more customers to very specific locations, like restaurants. That process provides a way to target customers who have already expressed an interest in specific locations for your multi-location business.
The key is to adopt location-specific retargeting of PPC ads.
While this type of advertising is rare, it is a huge opportunity for businesses in competitive markets to jump on. It should be happening much more often than it does. This is a great tactic for restaurants, bars, storefronts, hotels, plumbers, electricians, car rental companies -- basically any business that has multiple locations or serves multiple markets.
For owners with 10 locations in a 3-state area, buying and managing PPC ads that target your specific product or service to potential customers in those locations can become a pricey task. Territories overlap, creating questions about which location should who should foot the bill for each specific location, as well as the correct type of customer you are targeting.
Retargeting is a way to tag visitors to a specific page or pages on your website with a cookie that will allow you to show them a particular ad as they move around the web. It is a stellar way to keep your brand in front of visitors that have already expressed an interest by visiting your website.
If you run a multi-location restaurant, setting up an audience to target for each location is as easy as placing a Facebook Pixel or Google/Bing Audience Tag on specific location pages and then writing ads for those specific audiences. Those ads can be used for generic messages or to target location-specific specials to a very precise audience.
Because the ads are only shown to people who have picked up the cookie by visiting the location page, you're only spending money to get your ad in front of that limited but extremely relevant audience. It's a very cost-effective marketing approach.
You can, of course, expand this concept to specific products, services or even specific locations. I love the idea of being able to build a quick ad for a location-specific "Manager's Special" that is served directly to those familiar with your brand and location. It is already easier to keep a customer than find a new one and, with retargeting, it's even easier and less expensive than it has been in the past.
I'm going to run through the basic steps to set up a retargeting ad in Google AdWords. Bing is very similar, and Facebook uses the same concept in conjunction with the "Facebook Pixel" to gather information about your audience.
AdWords has two different types of retargeting: Standard and Dynamic. Dynamic retargeting is what drives those ads that follow you from site to site across the web. They use a product-specific value -- like an item number or deal ID -- attached to some specific value on the page. Then, using a cookie, the ad follows you around the web as you browse.
An easier-to-create option is standard retargeting. It's simpler to set up and doesn't require special coding skills. If you have an enterprise-level business with multiple locations, you probably want to have your development team help out with the dynamic retargeting setup.
The process is fairly similar in Bing and Facebook, although Bing, at this time, doesn't allow you to build a custom audience with email addresses.
