Using Targeted Platforms to Find Your Ideal Customer

Choosing the right type of ad platform can be challenging. Especially when it comes to figuring out where to focus your media budget and finding the right target audience. Between 2018 and 2020 US media consumption has gone from 11 hours average per day, to over 13 hours in 2020. And it only continues to grow. So, what media is best for your message and your business? Let’s look at a few options to consider when running targeted advertising to fit your needs.

 

Social

Social media is effective for specialized targeting and allows for advertisers to make quick changes to messaging. Overall, it can be one of the easiest digital platforms to set up targeted advertisements. Like most digital efforts, you can apply targeting to location, lifestyle, age, etc…

One of the unique benefits that social media targeted advertising provides is “social listening”.  We have all experienced that moment in a social post stating a “need” such as a new car and, in turn, have started seeing ads from car dealerships in our feed within the hour.

The added bonus of social media targeting is that you have opportunities to interact with potential customers and receive immediate feedback on how you are performing as a business. As most social media includes community engagement, finding potential leads through recommendations is also a way to curate your targeted messaging.

On a cautionary note, the biggest challenge when targeting on social is continually creating relevant, relatable content because the medium moves so quickly.

Moreover, creating a targeting campaign for a look-a-like customer or your ideal demographic with an ad may not always be enough to gain attention. Social only works if you can make a potential customer stop and notice your business and keep users engaged. This often includes investing additional time and effort into generating posts and additional content outside of your ad messaging.

 

OTT

Over-the Top (OTT) media refers to video programming that users access “over and above” typical broadcast, cable and satellite feeds. It’s typically served through a smart TV and/or hardware like an AppleTV or Roku stick. Ads in OTT content are a reliable easy way to engage directly with your targeted customer in their home. Your ads can follow that subscriber based on demographics, or you can target specific content. Some OTT targeting can get as granular as targeting homeowners in a particular neighborhood, which comes in handy if you’re looking to grow in a specific area.

There are a number of key strategies to keep in mind while looking at your performance goals for OTT. Depending on the device OTT ads are served on, they may not be clickable. This is an important key factor if tracking results beyond where your ads are targeted to consumers. Because of this, we’ve noticed that OTT is best used as a branding awareness layer as part of the broader spectrum of targeting campaigns.

Apart from this, there are benefits to OTT. Where social media moves quickly and messaging needs to continually change to remain relevant, OTT can benefit your business with a more consistent messaging. As we’re able to continually pick and choose the content we want to watch, OTT is easily covering the growing audience of “binge watchers” and the on-demand viewer right at home.

 

Traditional Media

When most people plan out their marketing dollars to find their ideal customer, they don’t always see traditional avenues such at TV, radio, or print as a targeted source of advertising. In fact, most of the time, we consider this broad marketing.

And yet, traditional media is the grandfather of audience targeting, and the most trusted when it comes to audience response.

Choosing the right programming to advertise in can deliver the right audience composition for your message. And, as targeting technology continues to evolve with ratings and delivery data, we see the opportunities for targeting being added to of the overall broader reach that you can achieve with traditional media. If done effectively, your campaign will drive trust, awareness AND a direct response.

 

 

As audience targeting becomes more sophisticated and more platforms become available, the most important thing for marketers to do is to set realistic goals and be clear about what you want to achieve with your targeting. Then- track results and invest in more in the tools and techniques that deliver on your goals.

For more information on what might be the right targeting techniques for your media budget, product and goals, let’s talk. Contact the RCG Contractor Marketing team.