Digital marketers continue to invest in more effective paid media strategies as opposed to traditional marketing efforts, where, for example, a banner display was placed on the highway. Now, digital marketers are looking into audience targeting; they want to deliver the right ad, to the right audience, at the right time.
Paid search specialists have placed the focus on conversions, and not impressions. It’s not about how many people your ad can reach, but more of how many conversions can you create that help deliver a healthy return on your investment (ROI). Audience targeting can help you focus on specific markets that are more likely to convert, helping you see a better ROI.
Search marketing has evolved, in which delivering an ad to the perfect audience requires a great deal of personalization, data, intelligence, and automation.
So let’s get into a few methods that digital marketers are now using to create more targeted and personalized advertisements.
Targeting Demographics
Facebook's Ad manager enables marketers to narrow down and advertise to an audience of a specific demographic. Demographics such as age, gender, interests, location, are helping marketers target a specific group of consumers that are likely to convert into sales.
Facebook has been so successful at demographic targeting that it has enabled marketers to generate a “lookalike audience” which targets an audience that is based on traits similar to an existing customer base you already have.
However, tools such as LinkedIn Ads and Microsoft Audience Network lets marketers narrow down targeted audiences to companies you work for, skill sets, and job titles.
Demographic targeting is extremely useful compared to traditional search methods.
Traditional search waits for your customer to search keywords specific to your ad, whereas demographic targeting uses artificial intelligence (AI) to place ads to the right audience, at the right time, without the user directly searching.
Native Advertising
Native advertising's success lies behind the fact, it has the ability to blend in with a customer's daily purchase journey. Customer’s go through their routines and daily activities where they're targeted with ads, often without them recognizing it.
Take a look at the following native ad from Hennessy. It follows the subject matter of the user's daily search, and offers content that is, for the most part, interesting and serves value to the customer.
This helps drive conversions, in which customers feel a sense of autonomy in which they are making their own purchase decision, and not being sold to.
Moreover, this is where personalization comes into play and helps promote conversions.
Creating More Visual Content
Targeted ads are more effective when they are complemented with visual content. Customers want a variety, so offering them more visuals or CTA’s help increase the chance they'll convert.
Google has been successful with this, through offering site links extensions with location and click-to-call options. Some have also had some success with Google Shopping ads that continue to attempt to steal market share from Amazon.
Facebook has also followed the trend; their advertising tool now enables marketers to use social carousel ads, post on stories, or even display short video advertisements.
Creating a well drafted targeted ad is only one piece of the pie. Equipping it with strong visual content is just another piece to help to drive conversions.
Sourcing Quality Partners
Marketers are now supplied with a variety of strong partners to display ads. Running campaigns across these platforms help create conversions, and targeting the right display network will make ads more personalized for a targeted audience.
Showing a native advertisement on a trusted site like Forbes or running ads using GDN and platforms like YouTube is extremely effective.
Following consumers along their purchase journeys, and advertising to them on a trusted platform is just another helpful tactic to succeed in audience targeting.
Why Audience Targeting Works
Reaching a specific audience through their buyer’s journey is a challenge. However, the more data and analytics markets get their hands on, helps them through this process.
The mission is to serve advertisements to customers through their personal journeys, not interrupt them. In fact, 51% of consumers expect ads that anticipate their needs and make relevant suggestions.
Audience targeting is simply efficient. Gone are the days where we are uninterrupted and spammed with undesired ads. Audience targeting diminishes this, as it pushes towards an automated and more efficient method of advertising solutions to their ideal customers throughout their desired daily journeys.
For more information about how you can use audience targeting to get more conversions, call TechWyse Internet Marketing at 866.208.3095 or contact us here.
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Audience targeting becomes complicated these days but the good thing is that, there are many strategies already which a marketer can do in order to attract audience and engagement at the same time. One of these is through the use of social media which is the most popular so far.