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Tips for Targeting Different PPC Audiences

PPC Target Audience
In my last post, I discussed the different options for audience targeting in Adwords. As you begin setting up those targets, keep in mind these key tips to ensure you set yourself up for success!
Have a strategy.
Don’t just pick random audiences without a strategy as to what you want to do with them. Are you going to target them separately because you just want to see how the data differs? Or do you already know one performs better than the other and you plan to put more budget towards that one? What do you know about your customers’ purchase cycle or geographic location that can help you understand how to segment your audiences?
When it comes to how you’re going to set it up, understand that if your plan is simply to increase bids for one audience in order to be higher on the page, you can keep it within your current campaign and adjust settings. If instead you want to put more budget towards that audience to increase your impression share and show more often for them, you should create a new campaign that only targets them and has a different budget than your current campaign.
Understand the difference between the “Target and bid” and “Bid only” settings options – and ALWAYS double check that you have the correct one selected.
“Target and bid” means that this ad group will only show ads to people within this audience. “Bid only” means that the ad will show to anyone who searches on that ad group’s keywords, but the bid is adjusted for the audience if you specify an adjustment. Sometimes when you’re setting up new audience targeting, the automatic setting checked jumps back and forth. I don’t know why Adwords does this but it’s extremely annoying and can impact performance if you miss it. Accidentally targeting all users when you only wanted to target a specific audience means you’ll spend way more of your budget on a larger amount of traffic than you intended. Accidentally targeting only the audience instead of all users means you’ll miss out on a lot of traffic.
To make your targeting more specific, exclude lists from each other.
If you have an ad group targeting all visitors in the past 60 days, this would also include anyone who has already converted in the past 60 days. It’s usually a good idea to exclude past converters for display ad campaigns so they don’t get annoyed by seeing your ad everywhere even after they’ve already completed a purchase with you. They’re also not likely to click through which will lower your average CTR.
Don’t use audiences that are so specific that they’re too small to target.
It’s a waste of time and it won’t make any difference to your bottom line.
Set a frequency cap on display campaigns.
Limit how often users will see your ad so they don’t get annoyed with you from seeing your ad on every web page they visit. You can set a frequency cap in the campaign settings under Ad Delivery.

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Kelsey Cadogan

Kelsey has been in the digital marketing industry since 2010 with experience working both in-house and agency-side. Her specialty is in paid search marketing although her experience also includes search engine optimization, content marketing and social media marketing. When not in the office or relaxing at home, she can be found at the nearest volleyball court.

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