It's no mystery that the economy has seen better times, and we at Microsoft adCenter understand how important it is for you to maximize your ROI on every click. That's why I'm here to let you in on an insider's tip that will show you how to stretch your advertising dollars significantly further this year.
I have been working exclusively on the adCenter Canada market for over 2 years now and I've witnessed many US advertisers achieve a better ROI with their Canadian campaigns than with their US campaigns. My teammate Matt Roberts (a longtime asset to the US adCenter team) came up with a spot-on analogy about the Canadian adCenter market: "Canada: it's the Wild West of adCenter. The clicks are cheap and plentiful, so get in now and stake out your territory because the rest of the pioneers and prospectors are hot on your covered wagon's trail."
adCenter Canada launched in February 2007, almost two years after adCenter launched in the US. Consequently, the Canadian market has had less time to become saturated with advertisers. The result is the Wild West effect that Matt described: decreased competition, cheap CPCs and high CTRs. Here are a few examples of how much more affordable clicks can be when you advertise north of the border:
| Keyword |
US CPC |
Canada (English) CPC |
| window blinds |
$3.82 |
$0.25 |
| birthday parties |
$0.51 |
$0.07 |
| air miles |
$1.97 |
$0.31 |
| wedding dress |
$0.47 |
$0.10 |
| insurance quotes |
$14.94 |
$3.47 |
| laptops |
$1.80 |
$0.56 |
| plasma tv |
$1.69 |
$0.64 |
| patio furniture |
$1.09 |
$0.47 |
[source: Microsoft Advertising Intelligence. 6-4-09. Averages of all match types, past 30 days.]
In addition to the relatively pale advertiser competition up north, studies show that Canadian internet users place second only to Finland in terms of the number of searches conducted per user per month (comScore 2008, Canada Digital Year in Review). It could be those long winters which cause Canadians to do so much virtual surfing, but I think that the exceptionally high penetration of broadband access in Canada is also a definite factor (CBC.ca, October 2008; BizReport.com, June 2007).
Canada's population is about one tenth the population of the US, so I recommend setting your Canada budgets to be at least one tenth of the budget for your US campaigns. Although clickthrough rates in Canada are higher which leads to a proportionally higher number of clicks, CPCs tend to be lower, so those two cost-influencing metrics ultimately balance each other out.
So what you are you waiting for? Enhance your ROI today and get those Canadian campaigns live! Check out this handy Microsoft Advertising Community entry for step-by-step instructions on creating Canadian ad groups in adCenter. Once you have a French part of your website built out, give me a call and I'll help you set up some campagnes en français :)
Don't just take my word for it. Check out these adCenter Canada case studies and read about how Microsoft adCenter helped these advertisers reach their target consumers and boost ROI:
Yours in the Great White North,
Catherine