Want to learn more about audience targeting?
Even if you’ve been running your own digital marketing campaigns for years, you’re still two steps behind the experts. Why? Because the pay-per-click (PPC) advertising landscape changes at lightning speed.
Over the last 3 years, we’ve seen an industry shift toward mobile-first designs, voice searches, and video fanaticism. You may have added a new branch to your campaign for any one of these new PPC trends. Other technologies, such as audience targeting, will force you to completely reimagine how you design your ad campaigns.
We’re talking a bottoms-up, no holds barred redesign. And yes, it’ll be totally worth it.
Are you chomping at the bit to learn more? Excellent. In the sections below, you’ll find the leading secrets that experts use to build their prize-winning, audience-targeting PPC campaigns.
When you’re ready to get a step ahead and finally start leading the pack, read on.
Audience Targeting 101
So long as you understand the basics of how PPC advertising works, you’ll have no problem picking up the finer points of Facebook and AdWords audience targeting. Yes, other platforms will be using this new technology. Though, as usual, Facebook and Google are the frontrunners in this digital trend.
The audience, rather than the keyword, targeting is a type of strategic targeting. It’s a method by which you focus your PPC ads on people with specific traits:
- Locations
- Demographics
- Behaviors
- Interests
For instance, you could target prospects when they draw near your store’s physical location. You could also target prospect who meet specific demographic criteria, such as sex, age range, and education level. You have a wide variety of options to choose from.
As always, the first step of your marketing campaign will begin with audience research. Who is going to buy your product or service? What are their interests, and where do they hang out?
After you uncover those mysteries, you plug all the data you’ve found into campaign targeting section in AdWords or Facebook. Don’t worry, the steps are simple. The data gathering is the hard part.
Now that you know the basics, let’s move on to the strategies that experts use to throw their digital marketing campaigns into overdrive.
The In-Market Audience
Both Google AdWords advertising and Microsoft Bing advertising now offer in-market audience filters. What the heck are those? They’re filters you can use to identify prospects who are actively comparing or researching products.
The technology began gaining steam in 2017, though these search engines continue to refine the process. Bing offers a load of options for a relatively inexpensive cost. It’s a low-hanging fruit worth considering.
The coolest part? The search engines use third-party data to identify your prospects. That’s right, the filters aren’t reliant on first-party data you collected through your CRM or webmaster tools.
All you have to do is pick a category that best represents your product or service. If you can’t find an exact match, you’ll find a similar alternative. Just use your imagination to consider analogous substitutions.
When you’re starting out, the best way to utilize this filter is to add it to an existing campaign. Then, adjust your bid modifiers as needed. Beef up your bid modifiers after you identify which audiences are showing more interest.
That’s when you get aggressive and up the ante.
Remarketing to Your Audience
The urchin tracking module (UTM) is one of the tools you can use on Google to segment your data. Some platforms outperform Google on in-depth demographic targeting. With UTM, you can integrate that data into your Google AdWords campaign.
Facebook and LinkedIn, for instance, offer robust targeting options. Let’s take a closer look at using UTM with an example.
Let’s say that you want to use digital channels to advertise your conference center which doubles as a ballroom. If you used Facebook, you could target potential wedding reception prospects. You could use filters like income, geography, and recent engagement status.
Yeah, we agree; Facebook is a marketer’s dream.
Now, you create your first campaign on Facebook using the data above. Then, you create a separate campaign that targets event planners, selling your conference experience and your other amenities. This is an excellent start, but we’re experts and ready to raise our game to the next level.
This is where UTM comes in. You want to remarket to your target audience. This time you’re using AdWords.
You start by using the UTM to define visitors from the Facebook campaigns. Remember, you’re defining these visitors in AdWords. After that, you create audiences based on these UTMs. Your goal is to create audiences with pre-defined demographic information.
If you segment your social media campaigns, it’ll provide a wealth of information. You can then leverage this data to provide the content your audience wants most.
Exclusive Vs. Inclusive
Don’t get single-minded when you build your next campaign. Sometimes it’s more important to exclude certain prospects than it is to include other prospects. Save your funds for the ones who will buy your services or products.
For instance, let’s say you own a chain restaurant and live in a small town. That same restaurant can be found in neighboring towns. If you want to stretch your ad budget, set a geographic filter on your PPC.
Why would you do that? Because then you’re targeting the people most likely to visit your particular restaurant. If you didn’t, many of those prospects would visit restaurants in your chain that reside in neighboring towns.
After all, those prospects are only craving the food that’s on your menu. They’ll happily visit a closer restaurant to get it.
What’s Next?
Now that you understand the power of audience targeting, it’s time to try it out. Start by reviewing the filters that your favorite platform offers. Next, spend a small portion of your ad spend on a new campaign that uses a few of these filters.
If you need help, or you’d like someone to run your campaign for you, contact an expert in PPC Management Services. So long and good luck!