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In your quest to reach your target audience through PPC or pay per click advertising, ad targeting plays a pivotal role. Depending on search behaviour, you can serve targeted ads to the users. Knowing about your targeting options helps plan your campaign and find the best PPC services.
With targeted search, display, and remarketing, you can not only engage the potential leads but also convert them into customers. Let’s explore all your options here:
PPC Search Targeting
Using search campaigns, PPC marketers reach consumers every time they look for specific information. In this targeting strategy, you may display and add on the search engine result page to answer the query of a user while influencing them to visit your site and make a purchase. And keywords are the means to this end.
Keywords or key phrases ask the search engines to provide the best results for searches relevant to them. For instance, when a user searches for a yellow dress on Google, the search engine will crawl through your account to check if you have a keyword there. If it is, Google will display your ad for the query. Here, factors like keyword match type, bids, and negative keywords may also make some changes. So, be wary of them.
Dynamic search ads are another weapon in your PPC arsenal to generate more business. Although it is relatively new to this landscape, dynamic search ads provide your website with the search engines to match relevant user queries with the content on your pages. Here, the platform may either scan all pages or look at specific lists only.
Contextual Ad Targeting
In the display campaigns via Google Display Network (GDN), you will get two main categories for targeting your ads. With strategies like contextual placement targeting, you can put your ad at a suitable place on GDN. It allows PPC marketers to provide a list of specific websites where they want to display their ads. Every site from this list should be included in Google’s AdSense.
For contextual targeting as well, keywords form the foundation of your campaign. They not only work as a cog in your digital marketing machine but also prove to be a potential targeting option for GDN. Here, you may not use match types for keywords and instead function as a broad match. Give a list of keywords to Google, so it may find content that matches these terms and show relevant ads.
Topics are the most crucial factor in contextual ad targeting. A professional PPC services company prepares the list of topics from the group websites created by Google. It can find placements that align with your theme. From broad category topics to multiple subcategories, you can always find the type of content you want to advertise for.
PPC Audience Targeting
At various points in the sales funnel, the actions taken by your audience can define their interest and allow segmentation of user intent accordingly. Here, you may use Google’s remarketing list for search ads to target users through actions like filling a contact form, visiting a specific page, or browsing your site for a specified period.
You may divide this targeting option into subcategories like:
- In-Market Audience
Just like topics targeting, in-market audience function in the same way but to reach a predetermined audience. Here, the groups of searchers actively researching the market for a specific service or product are targeted by the ads. You can browse the lists of in-market audiences in the same way as you do for the topics. With Google and Bing allowing these lists into their paid search campaigns, they are proving useful to narrow the focus on users with positive research behaviour.
- Custom Intent Audiences
As the latest type of audiences in GDN, this list allows PPC advertisers to use URLs and keywords to create an audience category. You can take cues from search queries about your product and services to define these parameters. Google may also provide a list of automated custom intent audiences that review your overall PPC account in its interface.
- Affinity Audiences
With the broadest outreach in GDN, affinity audiences are the list of people who incline toward a specific product or industry. For example, action movie lovers, women supporting green beauty, etc. You can use this list when trying to reach a broader audience through high-level CTAs and branding campaigns. Google allows marketers to create their custom affinity lists as well.
- Similar Audiences
In your remarketing initiatives, you can leverage the list of similar audiences to your benefit. Google reviews various user profiles in each remarketing list to find similar patterns. Once located, the search engine creates a list of a similar audience that display identical behaviour or search intent for specific keywords.
Demographic Ad Targeting
It is essential to reach an ideal target audience or demographics when you want to improve your ad performance incrementally. With PPC Services, prepare these layers by using the information provided by a user through their profile and behaviours. Here, you can use demographic information like:
- Age and gender as bid modifiers. You may monitor the performance of your ads for these demographics and adjust the bid modifiers accordingly.
- Household income has become another crucial parameter in this regard. The data about the average household income of a location may not be scientifically correct, but it helps target the users based on their income.
- Google has also added parental status to the list of their demographic targets. It works for specific ad group levels, so you can adjust your bids using modifiers based on the preferences and performance of this demographic.
- Remarketing is also an interesting way to engage your audiences and leverage your PPC accounts. Methods like remarketing pixels help to create a small snippet of code for the site. It cookies the visitors on your pages and creates a list of targets for remarketing.
Customer uploads or emails imported into Bing, Yahoo, or Google also help create a remarketing list. You can match the email addresses with users on the email provider of the search engine for ad targeting.
If you can link Google Analytics and Google Ads to import audiences, you will get a robust list of audience criteria to enhance site engagement and sequencing. The data is based on Google Analytics metrics for accuracy.
Creating these targeting lists isn’t enough. It is equally vital to leverage audience characteristics to improve your campaigns from time to time.