Gone are the days of setting up generic PPC campaigns broadly targeted to mass audiences. Today’s savvy digital advertisers are getting highly personalized through precision audience targeting. By combining offline customer data, lookalike modeling, demographic filters and more, you can create laser-focused segments that convert at much higher rates.
In this post we’ll break down four proven audience targeting strategies to significantly boost campaign relevancy, conversion potential and overall ROI from paid ads.
#1: First-Party Customer Data
The most powerful targeting comes from actual data on your current customer base. Upload email lists, customer IDs or website visitors that have already converted to build custom audiences. Review their common demographic, interest and behavioral attributes within platforms like Google Ads.
From there you can run messaging directly speaking to existing customers, tailor creatives specifically to their needs or even exclude them them to find net-new prospects. Having the inside data on converted audiences is hugely valuable for refining targets.
#2: Lookalike Modeling
Once you’ve created that core buyers audience, most paid platforms give you the capability to have their algorithms model “lookalike” audiences. This uses data modeling to find people that closely match the same attributes as converters, just from a much larger prospect pool.
Lookalikes essentially give you access to fresh untapped audiences that resemble current best customers. They convert at much higher rates by matching people intrinsically aligned to your products. Continually assess lookalike performance and optimization to further refine the ideal profiles.
#3: Audience Exclusions
Just as important as defining the most relevant audiences to target are exclusions that remove irrelevant or poor-fitting users. For example, you likely don’t want to advertise products exclusively to high-income households to those already buying from a competitor.
Utilize demographic, interest, habits and other filters to carve out groups unlikely to drive conversions based on your historical data. Excluding known poor-fit groups further focuses spend on qualified matching users. Monitor metrics over time and continually add any low-converting segments into exclusions for optimization.
#4: Contextual Targeting
Finally, leverage contextual signals to reach users when they are in the right mindset to take action. Target by time of day when your offerings align best with intent like happy hours for bars or evenings for consumer electronics. Reach customers reading relevant articles or watching related YouTube content.
Programming contextual triggers based on previous conversions significantly lifts response. The perfect audience is much more likely to act when messaging corresponds to their current need and consideration. Context boosts relevancy even further.
Moving to Highly Segmented Campaigns
Evolving from broad targeting to tailored audience building aligns your ads and messaging with much more qualified prospects intrinsically suited to your offerings. They convert at exponentially higher rates while paying less to reach them. Just remember to monitor performance markers and run thorough testing of new audiences against proven converters.
Precision audience targeting settles for nothing less than the perfect users to drive PPC success.