Targeting is a marketing strategy that allows you to target a specific audience selected according to certain criteria in order to increase the effectiveness of advertising campaigns and increase their conversion. In simple words, targeting is when we make advertising such that it reaches only those people who are really interesting to us and who are most inclined to do what we want them to do – buy a product, register on the site, and so on.
As you know, advertising is the basis of a marketing campaign and most brands use it as a way to convince potential customers. But let’s imagine a situation where you have a killer product that you carefully promote, but it does not bring results. There is advertising, but no sales – what could be wrong?
If you work in marketing or advertising, then understanding the different promotion methods will help you develop better strategies to increase revenue. Targeting can be the key to a successful ad campaign. In business and marketing, it is aimed at choosing the target market of a product or service for the subsequent effective direction of marketing efforts to them. That is, you choose the right people who will want to buy your product. After that, it remains only to ensure that your advertising reaches them and finds a response.
To understand how targeting works, let’s take a closer look at it and why it is so important when building marketing campaigns.
Targeting as an effective advertising tool in the modern world
Today, targeting is an effective promotional tool that allows businesses to customize their advertising campaigns in such a way as to reach the target audience with accuracy and relevance. Here are a few reasons why targeting is effective:
Increasing conversion. Targeted advertising shows advertisements only to interested consumers. This increases the chances of taking the desired action, such as purchasing a product or subscribing to a service. Thus, it increases the conversion, and hence the effectiveness of the advertising campaign.
Increasing relevance. Targeting on Telegram, Instagram, and other social networks allows you to more accurately determine who exactly your ad will be shown to. You can customize settings such as geographic location, age, gender, interests, and user behavior. This is a guarantee that you will hit exactly the target – your audience. In this way, you create more relevant ads that will engage consumers more and increase the likelihood of a reaction to them.
Advertising budget savings. Targeted advertising allows you to use your advertising budget more efficiently. You can choose certain parameters and thus optimize the delivery of ads only to users who are likely to be interested in your product or service. This reduces the cost of irrelevant audiences and increases the return on advertising campaigns.
Creation of personalized ads. You can create personalized advertisements that meet the interests and needs of specific users. This increases the chances of attracting the attention of the target audience and causing a positive reaction from the audience.
Measurement and optimization of results. Targeting makes it easy to track and measure the results of your advertising campaigns. You can analyze click and conversion data, and track which audience groups respond best to ads.
But it is worth understanding that targeting in the form in which it exists now was not always so. And before becoming a truly indispensable method of promotion, it has come a long way in evolution.
The evolution of targeting: from traditional methods to digital platforms
Over the decades, targeting has gone through a long process of evolution and change in the methods used to target advertising messages to specific audiences. First of all, this was facilitated by the digitalization of the population around the world against the backdrop of the spread of the Internet and digital advertising. Traditional methods that were used 10-15 years ago are no longer relevant today.
What do we mean when we talk about traditional communication channels? In the past, targeting was mainly done through television, radio, print and direct advertising. In addition, some methods also included placing advertisements in specialized magazines, programming advertisements at certain times on television and radio broadcasts, using direct mail, and so on. But these methods were limited by the ability to select the target audience, since information about consumers was limited.
With the development of the Internet and digital advertising, new opportunities for targeted advertising have appeared. Today, advertisers can customize and optimize their campaigns using a variety of parameters and user behavior data. In this connection, a variety of digital targeting methods have appeared.
Digital targeting methods
As targeted advertising grows in popularity, online platforms are getting more and more data about their users and offering advertisers different types of targeting. Here are the most popular ones:
- Demographic – This type of targeted advertising, which focuses on the characteristics of the audience – age, gender, salary, nationality, and so on.
- Geographical – This type focuses on the location of the potential buyer.
- Behavioral – The basis of this type of advertising is the behavior of potential customers on the site and buying behavior. The platforms collect data about the items that users view and display ads in accordance with them.
- Contextual – This type involves displaying ads based on the content of the site. For example, a publisher might show ads for toys on a parenting website.
- Retargeting – It is one of the important tools for digital marketers as it capitalizes on customers who have already expressed interest in or interacted with a brand. This type of advertising works by associating sets of advertising messages with a given behavior when a customer interacts with a brand on the Internet. For example, a customer who has bought a pair of New Balance sneakers is likely to receive promotional offers with other items from that brand.
The importance of targeting for business and marketing
Targeting on Instagram or any other social network is a strategy to identify and focus on a specific group of people who are the most likely consumers or customers of a product or service. But many marketers and brands ignore the importance of targeted advertising. After all, with its help you can get rid of the noise of advertising, which Internet users most often encounter. By choosing targeting, you can provide personalized content where users will see and interact with it. If you are ready to dive into the world of targeted advertising, you will get more benefits than you think.
Advantages of targeting over traditional advertising
More than half of the world’s population uses the Internet every day. People make requests to search for goods and services, browse social networks, visit online stores, and so on. And brands use various marketing channels to promote their products and services. But targeted advertising has a lot of advantages compared to other ways to promote a business on the Internet, namely:
- Hitting the target audience.
- Personalization.
- Low cost.
- Instant results.
- Profitability.
- Advanced analytics.
Let’s deal with each item in more detail.
Hitting the target audience. Targeted advertising allows brands to interact with potential customers who are most interested in their products. This increases the chances that the product or service will be sold to a specific customer.
Advanced personalization. Personalization is an important element in online marketing, and with targeted advertising, it can be taken to the next level. Knowing the characteristics, interests and behavior of your audience, you can offer them the most appropriate products or services.
lower cost. Compared to traditional offline advertising or complex online strategies such as content marketing, targeted advertising is more profitable. In addition, using this marketing channel, you never go beyond the budget you set for promotion. It’s very simple: as soon as you reach the limit, the advertising platform will stop showing your ads.
Instant results. Many online marketing strategies take longer to reach your goals. For example, if you take SEO, then this approach brings results in six months or more. In turn, targeted advertising allows you to attract customers right here and now.
Higher return on investment. By showing relevant offers to your audience, you increase your conversion rate, thereby increasing your sales and profits. And using complex targeting on Facebook and other advertising platforms, you can reduce the cost per click. As a result, you get a higher return on investment.
Deep analytics. Many advertising platforms show how effective your campaign is in real time. You get access to advanced analytics, which allows you to make timely changes to achieve better results.
These benefits make targeted advertising one of the most popular ways to promote a business online.
How to improve the conversion and results of advertising campaigns?
You can only get the full benefits of targeted advertising if you have a high conversion rate. This is a key success metric for marketing campaigns and by tracking it, you can optimize specific actions. The conversion rate in advertising helps to evaluate the following:
1. The level of relevance of your ad to the target audience.
2. The effectiveness of creative elements and calls to action in your ad that stimulates certain actions.
3. The financial performance of your ads.
But increasing your ad conversion rate isn’t as easy as it sounds, and measuring it over the course of one day won’t give you a complete picture of whether your ads are working. However, if you increase the period to a month or a year, you will be able to evaluate the performance of your Internet business.
A few simple tips will help improve conversions:
- Consider the characteristics of your audience.
- Use dynamic ads.
- Be specific and understandable to the buyer.
- Use direct calls to action.
- Work on user engagement in ads.
These actions will help draw attention to your ads and engage people, and as a result, focus on your brand’s uniqueness. Expanding the reach of advertising is worth starting with this. And remember that uniqueness and exclusivity is what attract and retain an audience.
Technologies and tools for targeting
It’s time to review a selection of the best targeting tools in 2023.
Madgicx is an integrated platform and marketing tool that you may want to implement into your business to meet your company’s marketing requirements, especially in the area of social media campaigns or Facebook platform advertising. This tool can be considered a universal advertising tool and platform based on artificial intelligence. This tool will help you meet your marketing needs with offline ad-buying capabilities.
Qwaya is another powerful business marketing tool that specializes in using social media, especially Facebook ads. Offering a wide range of features and services to its users and customers, this platform provides an efficient way to organize campaigns and advertisements to grow your business. Regardless of the goals and needs of the company, Kuaya provides the opportunity to advertise on Facebook and promote a brand related to its business requirements.
AdEspresso offers the ability to create, manage, collaborate, analyze, and study social media marketing campaigns in order to achieve the desired results and meet the requirements of your business. This tool is for everyone – agencies, online stores, small and medium businesses, as well as advertisers looking to serve their customers. With the aforementioned features, you can easily create customized ads and campaigns to suit your needs, ensuring efficient performance and driving the right traffic to your platform and website.
Machine learning and artificial intelligence in targeting
Whatever tool you choose, it is important to understand that technologies are constantly improving and what is relevant today may no longer be relevant tomorrow. Now in the field of marketing, there is a tendency to use artificial intelligence. This opens up more opportunities for both herpetologists and businesses. One of the main advantages is the ability to process large amounts of data.
Through data analytics, you can discover hidden patterns and trends, which helps you determine the most effective marketing strategies. However, this is not the only advantage of artificial intelligence. It is also worth mentioning process automation, improved customer interaction, better SEO results, increased customer satisfaction, and much more. In general, the use of AI in marketing helps marketers achieve better results and strengthen the position of their brands.
Conclusion
Remember, in order for targeting to help you increase sales in the long run, it is not enough just to set up an advertising campaign. Without understanding who exactly is your target audience and what are the core values of the product, as well as what exactly distinguishes you from competitors, you risk wasting your advertising budget. And also do not forget about the importance of analyzing the received data. This will help not only avoid mistakes in future campaigns, but also consolidate key details such as brand tone of voice, demographics, and more.