PPC ads are a great way to get in front of one of the most qualified audiences you can find – I mean, they’re literally searching for you! However by utilizing audience targeting, you can make your PPC strategy even more targeted and focused on the most relevant audience possible.
For most e-commerce websites, adding audience targeting into a PPC account can improve click-through rate, conversion rate and cost per acquisition by focusing more budget on the searchers most likely to click and convert. Here are a few of the best types of audiences to use in your account!
Past visitors & visitors to specific pages
The most common audience to target includes those who have previously visited your site. This is the widest remarketing option that allows you to focus in on people who are more familiar with your website. To make this audience a bit more specific, you can break it up into product categories or specific pages so that you know a bit more about what they were looking for. Then you can alter your messaging to be more specific to that user.
Past converters
If you know these people have purchased from you before, there’s a chance they’ll purchase from you again. Of course, this depends on what you sell. For example, if a customer just bought a fridge from you it’s unlikely they’ll be purchasing another fridge anytime soon. However for clothing companies or those that sell consumable products that typically need to be replaced, this audience can be an effective one to target. If you sell printer cartridges, you may want to show your ad to someone who could soon be running out of ink to get them to replace their cartridges through you. Depending on your industry, I would usually recommend setting this to not include anyone who has purchased recently. You could set your audience to include those who purchased between 30-180 days ago to exclude those who have purchased within the past few weeks since they are unlikely to purchase again so quickly.
Geographic
When you have a business that tends to be much more profitable in certain areas of the country than others, geographic targeting is a great way to increase your visibility in those areas – or decrease your visibility in areas that you know don’t tend to work well. For example, a company that sells deep sea fishing equipment would likely have a much higher conversion rate in states like Alaska and Florida where there is a lot of access to the ocean, and not do so well in the Midwest. By increasing your budget and visibility in those states you increase the chances for more transactions.
Demographic
This one can only be used in display ad campaigns. Companies that cater to specific demographics can benefit from targeting specifically to that demographic. For example, cosmetics companies, which tend to sell most of their products to women, can choose to show their ads only to women to improve performance. Altering your bids by user demographic is a great way to hone in on better traffic opportunities.
How to Improve Adwords Metrics with Audience Targeting
by Kelsey Cadogan on October 16th, 2015 | ~ minute read
