While many brands and agencies believe they’re executing local paid search and display campaigns, most of them simply aren’t – and by failing to do so they’re inadvertently wasting marketing dollars. Many of these “semi-local” campaigns fail because they: rely on shared budgets, ignore the simple fact that locations span various time zones, and/or don’t employ location-specific creative and landing pages. These mistakes lead to under-optimized campaigns that fail to demonstrate performance at the local level. What You'll Learn from this Worksheet: - What Adwords structure increases overall effectiveness - Why individual locations need individual budgets that pace independently - How unique ad copy and display creative can be launched across hundreds of locations

1. How Local is Your
Search Strategy?
A Planning Guide
for Paid Search Managers

2. While many brands and agencies believe they’re executing local
paid search and display campaigns, most of them simply aren’t – and
by failing to do so they’re inadvertently wasting marketing dollars.
Many of these “semi-local” campaigns fail because they: rely on
shared budgets, ignore the simple fact that locations span various
time zones, and/or don’t employ location-specific creative and
landing pages. These mistakes lead to under-optimized campaigns
that fail to demonstrate performance at the local level.
A truly local paid search or display campaign, even when launched
for thousands of locations, is built to reflect how a professional Paid
Digital Strategist would manage campaigns for a single location.
Ultimately, approaching local paid search and display with a locally-
focused mindset and activating campaigns using the appropriate
automation tools will deliver optimal results.
Unlike national paid search, local paid search
requires an acutely local focus. In order for your
brand to successfully drive prospective customers
at the local level two components are crucial:
geo-relevant ads and targeting (including carefully
selected key phrases and keywords) and location-
specific websites or landing pages.
HOW LOCAL IS YOUR SEARCH STRATEGY?
BALIHOO.COM

3. 1. Does each of my locations have it’s own AdWords sub-account?
Why it Matters: Placing each location at the sub-account level will allow your brand to
both execute on the micro-level and continue to manage (in bulk) across some or all of
your locations. This relatively simple change will increase the overall effectiveness and
performance of your local campaigns. Sub-accounts allow for individual Quality Scores to
be generated for each location, and appropriate dayparting to occur for locations in various
time zones. Balihoo Local Paid Search and Display solutions always execute at the sub-
account level, while traditional bid management solutions simply do not.
2. Does each of my locations have it’s own monthly budget that
paces individually?
Why it Matters: If your brand is running campaigns at the AdWords account level, the
aggregated budget will be shared by collective location base, even if you assign budgets
at the location-level. That means that a percentage of your locations will be spending well
above their “assigned” budgets, while other locations might not see any media at all spent on
their behalf.
3. Does each of my locations have it’s own custom radius setting or list of
zip codes?
Why it Matters: Sub-accounts allow brands that have many locations in a single city to
assign zip codes to each store or agent so that there is no cross-pollination of campaigns or
paid search competition between locations. Using a data feed to control the assignment, and
adjusting that data when stores open and close, is a best practice for optimization.
4. Does each of my locations have unique ad copy and display creative?
Why it Matters: Employing dynamic data, brands can generate unique ad versions for each
individual location, across multiple campaigns and hundreds of ad layouts. Images, text, and
URLs can and should always reflect the most up-to-date NAP and offer specific information
for each location. This can only be accomplished through dynamic creative and automation,
such as Balihoo Local Paid Search and Display solutions.
5. Am I able to report across campaigns for a single location?
Why it Matters: Aggregate-only reporting means brands are manually breaking out each
location in an attempt to identify weak areas and/or report specifics back to individual
locations. When keywords, level stats, conversions, CPC, CTR, quality scores, and other
metrics are available by location, decisions can be made quickly to re-optimize some or all
locations. For brands that have local affiliates or partners, this enables those locations to
access their individual metrics via a real-time portal such as Balihoo Local Partner Connect.
6. Are my target keywords geo-personalized to include local data such as
zip codes, city names, and/or products offered?
Why it Matters: To be successful, local ads require the use of customized, location-specific
keyword lists. Generating unique, geo-modified keyword lists for every single participating
location will enable your brand to optimize marketing spend. Whether you’ve established
exact, broad, phrase, or negative keywords, innovative technology can perform the
monotonous work of geo-modifying them for your local audiences.
How Local is Your Search Strategy?
QUESTIONS YES NO
WORKSHEET
BALIHOO.COM

4. How is Balihoo
Different?
At Balihoo, every solution we design is purpose-built for
local search marketing by national brands. In fact, Balihoo
is the only software platform that appends location-level
data inputs with centralized brand data. When we say
local, we mean it: individual location budgets, radius and
zip codes, localized keywords, customized creative, and
location-level reporting.
For our customers, this means incredible efficiency gains,
textbook campaign optimization, and most importantly,
remarkable local results.
EFFECTIVE
Balihoo users enjoy click-through-rates
(CTR) three to four times the industry
average and average costs-per-click (CPC)
that are half the cost.
EFFICIENT
Balihoo users spend 90% less time
performing account setup and campaign
maintenance. Such tasks, which quickly
become resource-prohibitive when tasked
with hundreds or even thousands of
individual locations, are eliminated.
By simply reallocating one hour of this
time to campaign optimization, brands
experience CTR increases as high as 19% in
just 48-hours.
LOCAL
Balihoo generates customized, locally-
specific versions of brand’s search and
display ads for each individual location.
The result: precise consumer targeting that
truly resonates with prospective consumers
in each location’s specific area.
HOW LOCAL IS YOUR SEARCH STRATEGY?
BALIHOO.COM
Avoid the stress
of the critical path.
Use data triggers to activate and deactivate
your campaigns. Perhaps you only want ads to
run for locations with the advertised product
in stock? Or maybe you only want to target
markets where certain weather conditions
are currently present? In either case - and
in thousands of others like them - leading
brands are leveraging the power of data
feeds. Balihoo can tie into inventory systems,
location databases, 3rd party weather and
demographic sources, and/or virtually any
data feed significant or unique to your brand.