For most businesses, "everyone" is not your target market. Whether only certain people or organizations need your services or products, or you have a broad potential customer base, targeted online advertising can be a powerful, effective digital marketing strategy.
What is Targeted Online Advertising?
Targeted online advertising is a type of digital marketing where ads are shown to segmented audiences.
While some types of online advertising show ads to anyone on the internet, the most effective online ads are targeted online advertising.
How Targeted Online Advertising Works
To understand how targeted online advertising works, let's look at an example.
In this example, a client's primary business is a wedding venue. With targeted online advertising, we can show ads only to people who are most likely to need a wedding venue. One possibility would be to create targeted online advertising that only shows ads to people who have become recently engaged. We can also create region-based targeted online advertising, such as only showing wedding venue ads to people within a 50 mile radius of the wedding venue.
The above example exemplifies why targeted online advertising is so effective. Rather than paying to show ads to everyone, which may include people who are already married, targeted online advertising can only show ads to people who we know need our client's services, such as people who are recently engaged and will be planning a wedding, or people whose job title suggests that they are professional wedding planners.
Types of Targeted Online Advertising
There are seemingly endless combinations for targeted online advertising. Many of the different types of targeted online advertising can be used together for even more precise, powerful advertising. However, common types of targeted online advertising are detailed below.
Regional Targeted Online Advertising
Regional targeted online advertising is a great option for local businesses. If you're advertising a law firm that only practices within a 25 mile radius of their office location, then you'd be wasting marketing spend if you're not doing regional targeted online advertising.
Regional targeted online advertising allows a business to show ads only to people within their service region. For example, if you run a grocery store that only has locations in Syracuse, NY, then regional targeted online advertising can show ads to people who live near your grocery store.
Without regional targeted online advertising, you may waste advertising dollars by showing ads to people who would never go to your grocery store because they live in a different city or state.
Demographic Targeted Online Advertising
Demographic targeted online advertising is great for businesses whose audience is most likely to be someone of a certain age group, gender or who works in a specific professional industry.
Our previous example of showing wedding venue ads to people who are recently engaged is one application of demographic targeted online advertising.
For example, demographic targeted online advertising would be best for a company that sells gender-specific products, such as make up.
Demographic targeted online advertising can also be beneficial for businesses whose customers or clients are most likely to be of a certain age group. For example, an estate planning lawyer may want to use demographic targeted online advertising to show ads to people who are middle aged or elderly. Conversely, a credit union who is looking to acquire long term, new members may want to show ads to Millennials.
Demographic targeted online advertising can be great for Business-to-Business (B2B) companies. Demographic targeted online advertising allows businesses to only show ads to people based on their job title, the industry they work in, or even to people who are employed by specific companies.
This industry based demographic targeted online advertising ensures that only potential buyers will see your online ads. For example, if your company manufactures and engineers parts specifically for the defense industry, you can create ads that will only show to people who work at gun manufacturing companies.
Demographic targeted online advertising can also be valuable for employment recruitment campaigns. For example, if you're looking to hire an experienced administrative assistant, you can show Facebook or LinkedIn ads to people whose job title is "Administrative Assistant."
Behavior Targeted Online Advertising (or "Behavioral Targeting")
Targeted online advertising also allows digital marketing agencies to show ads to people based on their online activity. This behavior targeted online advertising can be very powerful when done right. For example, we can show ads to people whose online activity suggests that they're actively looking for, or "in the market for," a new car purchase.
Interest Targeted Online Advertising
Interest targeted online advertising allows digital marketers to show ads only to people who have specific interests. This can be especially helpful for companies who have a clear concept of their audience profile. For example, if you know that most of your customers live in rural areas and like to hunt or fish, you can show interest targeted online advertising to people who are interested in hunting and fishing.
Even if you don't know everything that most of your customers like, interest targeted online advertising can be effective. For example, if you're a local coffee shop, you can show ads to people who have shown an online interest in other local coffee shops, Starbucks or even coffee in general.
How Targeted Online Advertising Can Help Your Business Achieve Your Goals
Whether you're trying to acquire more online leads, increase local awareness of your brand or do something that's more specific to your type of business, targeted online advertising is a great way to achieve your goals because you're showing ads only to the people who are most likely to be your customers or clients.
More On Digital Marketing Services
If you're selling luxury cars, wouldn't it make sense to only show your ads to people who can afford your product? With targeted online advertising, you can do exactly that.
If you're a human resource consultant, wouldn't it make sense to only show your ads to people who can hire you, like administrative assistants, purchasing officers or company owners? With targeted online advertising, you can do exactly that.
If you sell heavy equipment, wouldn't it make sense to only show your ads to people in the construction industry or heavy equipment operators? With targeted online advertising, you can do that.
In brief, targeted online advertising is a smarter, more effective, and more efficient way to use your advertising budget. That's because instead of wasting money advertising to people who would never need your products or services, targeted online advertising allows you to only pay to show your ads to people who we know are in the market for your products or services.
Partner with the Trusted Targeted Online Advertising Experts
For years, ACS Web Design and SEO has helped businesses grow with cutting edge targeted online advertising. We are a Google Partner agency. Our team also includes Google AdWords Certified specialists, so you can be confident that when you work with ACS Web Design and SEO, you're working with experienced, knowledgeable and qualified digital marketing professionals.
"We strongly recommend ACS to deliver the results you are looking for."
- Nancy Ellis
Vice President of Human Resources
Fulton Savings Bank
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