According to studies, more than 40 percent of consumers prefer to see ads targeted to their interests over ads for random products. Fortunately, the internet has made it easy for marketers to discover people’s interests.
Targeted marketing is one of the most powerful advertising strategies to come out of the internet age. Let’s look at how data drives this type of marketing.
What is Targeted Marketing?
Targeted marketing means showing ads or other promotions tailored to someone’s interests. Rather than running a generic ad that will hopefully connect with a small percentage of a large audience, targeted ads get shown to a smaller audience that has a much higher likelihood of being interested.
If you’ve ever gone searching for information about something on the web and started seeing related ads shortly after, you’ve seen targeted marketing in action.
How Data-Driven Marketing Works
Ad networks and database services can collect information about people browsing websites, searching Google, and performing various other online activities. Advertisers can use that information to create a narrow, focused audience for their promotions.
Websites like Google and Facebook have a lot of information about anyone who uses them regularly. They have a lot of personal information such as age, location, and contact details. But they also know what they’re interested in based on things they click on and groups they join.
Advertisers can create audiences based on their typical customers and only show ads to those people. This reduces the cost since they aren’t paying to show ads to people who aren’t likely interested.
It also increases the response rate since the people seeing them are more likely to take action.
4 Benefits of Using Targeted Marketing Techniques
There are four valuable benefits of targeting your marketing efforts to the right people. These benefits are as follows.
1. Better Message-to-Market Match
Since your marketing is only seen by the people most likely to show interest, you can get a lot more specific with your message. You don’t need to grab the attention of people who might be on the fence (or not interested at all).
2. Build Stronger Connections
Targeted marketing lets you connect directly with the people who are most likely to want what you have to offer. This helps build stronger connections with those prospects and customers because they’ll feel like you’re speaking directly to them.
3. More Detailed Tracking
Data lets you target your marketing efforts but you can also collect more data on the backend. This means you can track your results more effectively and dial in your ads even better.
4. Personalization
Along with a better message-to-market match, you can personalize your ads more effectively. For example, instead of sending the same ad to the whole audience, you can break it down into subsets of even more targeted groups. Each of those groups can get a more personalized version of the ad.
Don’t Overlook the Value of Targeted Marketing
Targeted marketing is one of the best ways to improve your response rate. Done well, it can also help you reduce your advertising costs, resulting in an even better ROI. You can’t find a much better win/win solution than that.
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