When creating a new campaign in adCenter, do you find yourself feeling a bit confused when it comes to understanding ad distribution by language and market (figure 1 in screenshot below) versus geographic targeting (figure 2 below)? Are you wondering what the differences are between selecting "English – United States" and "English – UK"? Do you know whether or not you should apply targeting after selecting your distribution site? If any of these questions have entered your mind, you’ve come to the right place!

Distribution by language and market and geographic targeting work together to provide users with the most relevant ads based on their location. Distribution refers to the actual web property where your ads will be displayed, regardless of where the user is located. For example, selecting "English – United States" means your ads will display whenever someone searches on MSN.com. If you select "English – UK", your ads will be displayed if a user performs a search on msn.co.uk. Each language / market has its own inventory of ads that operate independently from the others. For example, searching for "dvd players" on msn.co.uk will produce these results:

But performing the same search on MSN.com will bring up the following results:

This setting also determines the language your ads are written in and the regional Editorial Guidelines that your ads and keywords must meet. Microsoft adCenter provides advertisers options to distribute their ads among various MSN properties: MSN.com and Live.com, MSN UK, MSN Canada, MSN French Canada, MSN Singapore, and MSN France. While language / market distribution refers to the web site, geographic targeting refers to the location of the user.

Think of targeting as a filter, if you choose "English – United States" for your distribution and then select "Display my ads to all customers", this means that your ad is accessible to anyone searching on MSN.com from any location. If you only want traffic coming from people searching from within the US, then you should target your ads to the United States. When a user located in Toronto, Canada searches on MSN.com, your ad will not display. You can also target potential customers by state, city, day of the week or time of day. For more information about targeting please take a look at the targeting Flash tutorial on adExcellence.com.

Questions or comments about language / market distribution vs. targeting? Please let let know on our discussion forum.