Make the Most of Your Marketing Spend with Hyper-Targeting

Make the Most of Your Marketing Spend with Hyper-Targeting

Don’t Overlook the Targeting Capabilities of Digital Ad Platforms

Are you spending lots of money on ad platforms but still struggling to get people to convert? Chances are that you are not targeting your ads to reach out to the right audience segment.

You may be doing mass advertising or heuristically defining custom audiences but it might not be enough. You need to start considering the hyper-targeting options that digital advertising platforms offer.

A Look at Novel Targeting Capabilities of Ad Platforms

Here’s how Google Ads provide advanced targeting options:

• Bullet textAffinity audiences – Targeting audiences based on their habits and interests.
• Bullet textIn-Market Audiences –Audiences who have exhibited purchase intent.
• Bullet textRe-marketing Audiences – Audiences who have already interacted with your brand.
• Bullet textDemographics – Targeting audiences according to pre-defined attributes of age, gender, etc.
• Bullet textCustomer Match Targeting – Existing customer repositories in your CRM
• Bullet textSimilar Audiences – Audiences who have similar behavior patterns and interests like your website visitors and existing customers.
• Bullet textLife event Audiences – Audiences who are amid specific lifetime milestones like marriage, retirement, childbirth, etc.

Besides, Google also provides a feature known as Dynamic Prospecting that employs the advanced technology of machine learning to predict and match your products or services to what will be needed by your audience.

The machine learning engine works by statistically modeling relationships between your offerings and user intent which gets captured during intent searches. Subsequently, ads about your products are shown to the corresponding users.

On the other hand, Facebook offers several targeting options including:

• Bullet textCore Audiences – Audiences are defined based on basic attributes like demographics, location, interests, connections, etc.
• Bullet textCustom Audiences – Existing customer base of your business from your contact list, site visitors, and app users.
• Bullet textLook-alike Audiences – Audiences who are similar to a source audience like your existing customers.

Thirdly, there are intent monitoring platforms that have access to repositories of people with intent towards several products or services. You can utilize these platforms for lead sourcing and leverage targeting of the highest level.

S.No Category Intent Taxonomy Description Count3 FINANCE_BANKING_AUTO_LOANS Intent > Finance > Banking > Auto Loans People who are looking for an auto loan. XXXX4 INSURANCE_HOME_PROPERTY Intent > Insurance > Home Property People with intent to buy consumer home and property insurance XXXX

Getting Started with Targeting

Choosing the right target segment for your ad campaigns can make or break the success of your campaigns. Hence it’s vital to align your ad with audience intent. Here are some ways you can leverage targeting features of ad platforms:

1. List textIdentify key variables and fields from the targeting options that ad platforms provide you.
2. List textLook at your existing data of customers and start applying the same variables to segment your customers.
3. List textIf you don’t have adequate data start collecting data from your existing customers by running surveys, polls and incentivize customers to share information.
4. List textOnce you have all the information you can create segments within your customer base and develop representative profiles according to the targeting options of ad platforms.
5. List textDefine different ad groups based on the segments and start running dedicated campaigns to target those segments.
6. List textLeverage paid platforms to get more access to groups of people with matching intent for your product and services.
7. List textFinally, track and measure the results of the targeted campaign performance to make improvements and complete your powerful strategy.

There was a requirement from one of our clients to do a short burst promotional campaign for their products. However, we had to get the task done with the least lead time and a limited budget. Our team utilized a hyper-targeting approach to arrive at micro-segments to run the digital campaigns. As a result, the campaign got them outstanding results with an amazing response rate and better ROIs.

According to research conducted by IBM, 56% of consumers feel that most of the messages from brands are irrelevant or unimportant to them. Hyper-targeting enables marketers to reach customers with relevant messages at the right place and right time.

Even though targeted campaigns may have a smaller reach than mass marketing, if done right it can enable you to penetrate your target market and begin interacting with them regularly. That makes your marketing spend to work twice as harder and worth the efforts.How far do you go to define your target audience? Even if it’s just for social media ads or Google campaigns, targeting capabilities can fetch the effective outcomes you desire. To know how we have implemented hyper-targeting for running marketing campaigns and achieved better ROI write to us at marketingfolks@xerago.com.

Another powerful feature that every marketer ought to use is to test search ad copies to increase ad strength, quality, click-through rate and ensure to get the best bang for your buck. Wondering how simple testing can help you create effective search ads before going live? We will tell you how. Coming soon…