What is Audience Marketing – And Why is it Key to Your Digital Growth

Digital marketing has seen some big changes in the last couple of years. The nature of search is evolving, and the digital landscape is constantly changing.

Audience centric strategies are becoming a more important consideration for any digital marketing strategy. Finding out who your audience is, their search habits and the actions they take on your website is now key to the future of your online marketing success.

The customer journey is no longer as straightforward as searching for a product on a desktop computer and buying. Multiple touch points across a variety of devices, from desktop, mobile and tablet mean that customers are now researching, comparing and then buying over numerous devices and often longer periods of time.

As marketers, we need to gain a greater understanding of who these customers are, where the customer is in their buying cycle, and when they are most likely to convert.

Throughout the last year we have seen a more audience-based focus in AdWords and Bing Ads. Historically, the paid advertising focus has been on keywords, matching search terms a user types into Google (or Bing) to appropriately related keywords and ads. A strong keyword approach can still be very effective, but the recent advances in audience tools now provides marketers with an even more targeting opportunities.

If you aren’t already using audience targeting, ask yourself the question:

Why wouldn’t I want to show my ads directly to the right audience?

People who you know are engaged, have an affinity with your brand/offering and are in-market to buy your products or services.

What does audience marketing consist of?

To assist you in marketing to your desired audience, there are many tools available through various digital marketing platforms e.g. AdWords or Bing Ads. Please see some examples below:

• Remarketing Lists
• Customer Match
• Similar Audiences
• Affinity Audiences
• In-market Audiences

Remarketing lists

Remarketing is showing ads to people who have already visited your website.

Remarketing lists allow you to select who you are going to remarket to based on pre-determined criteria you have set. You can create lists based on pages people have visited on the website, how long they have been on the website, how many pages they have visited or if they have already made a purchase as well as many other possibilities.

Benefits of using remarketing lists

• Can be used on both the Search Network (RLSAs) and Display Network
• Enables you to increase or decrease bids (using bid modifiers) to target or exclude certain users based on their previous activity
• Brand awareness - Remarketing lists are a great way to increase your brand awareness to people who have already visited your website
• Can help focus the account on high value products or other important criteria

Customer Match

Allows you to target previous customers, based on data such email address and phone number. Ads can be shown on both the Search and Display Networks to help previous customers convert again.

Benefits of using Customer Match

• Helps with customer retention and extension
• Can be used in conjunction with Similar Audiences
• Useful for brand awareness

Similar Audiences

This audience feature is a personal favourite.

If you create a remarketing list or customer match list that are big enough, Google will automatically create a similar audience list. Similar audience lists are a reflection of your other remarketing lists but targeting new people with similar search behaviours.

The two-previous features are based on making the most of the people who are already engaged with you and your brand. This tool is about finding a new audience. Similar audience lists will show your ads to people who are new to you, have desired characteristics and search behaviours and that are engaged.

Benefits of using Similar Audiences

• Expand your audience
• Increase volumes in the account
• Reach new customers that display highly desirable search behaviours

Affinity Audiences

Affinity Audience targeting lets advertisers reach consumers in large numbers based on their long-term interests.

Benefits of Affinity Audiences

• Reach a wide audience
• Brand awareness for new customers
• Targeted towards user interests or affinity with certain products/services/sectors

In-market Audiences

This is very much like Affinity Audience; however, these people are in market, meaning they are actively considering buying.

Benefits of In-market Audiences

• Reach a wide audience
• Reach consumers who are actively researching and comparing products/services like yours
• Advertising to people who are ready to buy or take a desired action

Google, Bing and Facebook are all pushing towards utilising Audiences strategies. With improvements in their Audiences tools, now it is the perfect time to review your strategy.

Here at SilverDisc we have seen some great success and growth for our clients in the last year due to a combination of Audience and Automation tools.