Cashing in on Canada: Adding Ad Groups with Canadian Distribution

Whether you ship products or provide services, if you conduct business in Canada, you may want to consider including our neighbors to the north in your search engine marketing strategy.  On average, costs-per-click (CPC) tend to be lower while click-through rates (CTR) typically trend higher than in the US; there is significant potential to generate a favorable return on investment (ROI) through the untapped potential of this mid-market, technically-savvy audience.  To begin advertising in Canada, it's as simple as creating some new ad groups and changing their market distribution settings. 

Because ad groups can be set to distribute in only one market -- once in place, this setting is permanent -- you'll need to make duplicate copies of your ad groups. 

To add an ad group under an existing campaign:

1. Click the Campaigns tab.
2. In the Campaign column, select the campaign you want to add a new ad group to.
3. On the Select an ad group page, click Create ad group
4.  
5. Under Ad group settings, in the Name box, type a name for the ad group -- be sure to use something that differentiates these new ad groups from your US-distributed ads; perhaps adding "_Canada" or "- CA" to the end. 
   
   
   • TIME SAVING TIP: After you name the new ad group, select the Copy an existing ad group option, select the ad group to copy, and then choose to copy the ad group's ads and keywords. If you want your Canadian ads to have different content, when you edit the ad on the Ads tab, click Create New instead of Save.


6. Once these duplicate ad groups have been set up with ads and keywords per the tip above, continue on with the remainder of the process to create your new Canadian ad groups.  For step-by-step instructions, view the help file on creating a new ad group within an existing campaign.

Don't forget, once you arrive at the option "Distribute your ads by language and market", choose "English - Canada" (or "French - Canada" if you are targeting French Canadians):

It's worth pointing out that while geo-targeting an ad group to Canada will reach Canadians searching on US properties like www.live.com, geo-targeting alone will not reach Canadians searching on Canadian properties like http://www.msn.ca/ or www.live.ca.  You need to set your ad groups for the Canadian market and language (English or French) distribution in order for your ads to appear on these sites.

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