6 useful tips for targeting

The ability to find and target very specific audiences has been both the Holy Grail and an Achilles' heel for advertisers. On the one hand, the promise of efficiency combined with scale and near-zero waste is something Mad Men could only have dreamt about 10 years ago. On the other hand, with the ability to target precisely comes the opportunity to target the precisely wrong person.

As it turns out, targeting isn't completely scientific. As with much else in marketing, it is a blend of science and art. You need the powerful databases, multi-layered data sources, and analytic tools to filter through the millions of users and billions of impressions to reach your target. But you also need the experience and insight to determine if your target is, indeed, receiving the right message at the right place at the right time.

Here are some tips to help you target the right online audience.

Target audiences, not sites
Targeting through websites alone is a dated approach to finding an audience. In fact, your audience is in more places than you realize. With more than 234 million websites available in 2009 (almost one for every internet user in North America), the fragmentation of the online audience will continue, causing advertisers to continue shifting dollars from site targeting to audience targeting. For example, if you advertised on the top 10 sites with the highest composition index of people likely to buy a car in the next six months, you'd only reach 37 percent of the possible audience, according to comScore numbers. Really, the only way to reach scale on the internet is to target audiences, not cherry-pick websites.

Learn about your online audience first
Sure, it sounds obvious, but I can't tell you how many clients have come to us with definitive, inflexible definitions of their online audience. Often this audience definition was drawn from offline research or traditional media buying assumptions. But online behavior doesn't always align with offline customer data, and the best way to learn about your true target audience is to gather real-time online performance metrics. Appending advertising performance analytics with third-party customer data can help create a 360-degree view of those acting on advertising messages. This helps identify "look-alike" audiences outside of the initially targeted customer base. And the results are often surprising. Using this strategy, we can determine what your audience composition is -- before we run even a single impression.

For example, a CPG client of ours wanted to target its food product toward "upward bound/trendy homemaker" user profiles (using Claritas PRIZM segments). However, as the campaign ran, we found a stronger correlation with thrifty, young, and growing families. In addition, we were able to identify some additional enthusiast segments that correlated with visitors to the client's website, such as pet owners and home and garden enthusiasts. Again, the best prospects turned out not to be the original targets.

It's the "who" and the "where"
It's important to understand that the audience is modal, switching state of mind with each click of the mouse. The same mom you're targeting when she is on a casual gaming site is in a very different state of mind than when she is looking up recipes. Matching the right person with the appropriate context is essential. This is one area where ad exchanges create a potential danger for brand advertisers. For a direct response advertiser, it might be fine to reach an intender anywhere they are. But for those seeking to influence brands, the quality and type of content in which the ad sits matters.

Don't chase clicks
I'm still surprised by how many sophisticated marketers evaluate the success of an online ad campaign by the number of clicks it generates. We've all seen the research: Clicks have been on the decline for years, and those who do click tend not to be the most valuable audience to most advertisers. The misguided desire for high click rates leads to a fundamental targeting error: chasing clicks. And don't be fooled; most ad networks can deliver clicks by targeting gaming sites and other high-click environments. Look at other, more meaningful metrics such as interaction rate and time spent with your creative. We also advocate working with third-party brand analytic companies to measure actual brand lift instead of just relying on click-through rate.

Be careful with context
Context is a popular targeting method in which the content of the page is mechanically determined and matched to the appropriate ad. Or so you'd hope. In our many years at this, we've run across some pretty funny (scary?) examples of contextual targeting gone awry. One of my personal favorites is the coffee ad placed next to the headline "Coffee Increases Heart Attack Risk." And we've probably all seen examples of this with key word-driven CPC ads. Thus, it's imperative to use engines designed to determine the context of the content, not the keywords.

Don't over-target
The industry's great ability to aggregate data and narrowly focus campaigns sometimes leads to the desire for a mythical, exact audience. You know, the right-handed green-Volvo-driving, health-conscious grandmas in the market for new nutritional supplements. And we could find them. All three of them. So unless the product is extremely specific, cast a wider net. By casting a wider net, you can find broader audiences that perform -- ones that you might not know exist and that are often much more scalable.

One of the mental pitfalls that search ads have created among marketers is the over-emphasis on being down the sales funnel. But I suggest that we not use display advertising to target customers who've basically already made up their purchase decision. Instead, create awareness and desire. Find your core, but not to the exclusion of the wider audience. Economic activity always takes place on the margins. By targeting the right type of user at a higher level in the funnel, you help those users make their way down the funnel, which in turn helps drive your search campaigns.

Ashley Herzog is national director, client services, for Collective.

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