October 8, 2021
The Ideal QA Process in Digital Advertising
Utilizing audiences in your digital strategy is critical to efficiently capturing your ideal consumer. While continually evolving, at a high level audience targeting allows you to show ads to individuals based on who they are, what their interests and habits are, what they’re actively researching, and/or how they have interacted with your business. Whether it’s search, display or video, having a robust audience strategy is sure to positively impact performance.
Why is Using Audiences Important?
By refining your targeting, you gain greater control over who sees your ads, ultimately reducing wasted spend that can be used towards other initiatives, such as rolling out new tests. Depending on the goals of the account, there are audience targeting options that help cater to any point in the funnel, whether it’s an upper funnel effort like targeting affinity audiences on YouTube or utilizing remarketing lists in search ads to close the purchase funnel. Regardless of the account goal or targeted position within the funnel, utilizing all that Google has to offer on the audience front will help you reach your target audience.
Different Audience Types
Check out this overview from Google that clearly outlines all the audience types at your disposal. Then, we’ll walk through audience strategy by where you are in the funnel.
Affinity Audiences
Starting at the top of the funnel with awareness tactics, a great way to fill your cookie pool is by utilizing affinity audiences. These people haven’t yet showed intent for your specific product or offering; however, in some way or another, they possess qualities of a potentially qualified consumer through their interests and hobbies.
In-Market
Moving further down the funnel, in-market audiences refer to people that are actively researching or planning for a specific topic. This will still grow your cookie pool and expand your reach, but this audience is more targeted than affinity audiences and is great if you’re looking for a slightly more qualified audience.
Custom Intent
Even more targeted is custom intent which essentially allows you to define your own audience by specifying keywords and landing pages instead of choosing pre-populated categories from Google Ads. This unique option is a great way to hone into your ideal consumer. When using custom intent, it’s important to stick to a common theme so Google is able to use the information it’s given to narrow in on the ideal users you’re looking to reach.
Remarketing Lists
In order to close the purchase funnel, it’s critical to utilize remarketing lists. It’s likely that regardless of the industry you’re in, competition is running rampant. If someone has reached your site, they’re considering choosing you but they’re also likely deciding between a handful of other competitors. The best way to stay top of mind for these individuals is to present content to them as if they’ve already laid eyes on your brand. By knowing they’ve visited your site or made it to the check out page, we can tailor to their online experience by showing them new content and taking into account any factors that kept them from converting in the first place.
Conclusion
Whether your business is in high-growth mode or strictly efficiency mode, it is imperative that audience strategy is top of mind when driving strategy for online marketing efforts. If you’re looking for new ways to get creative with your audience strategy, don’t hesitate to reach out to our team!
