Targeting strategies for advertising success

Test, test, new method?

The rumbling knock at our door disturbed the peace of our evening family dinner. My dad set his fork down, wiped the spaghetti sauce off his face while backing his chair out from the table, and began walking to the door.

I was still young, about five, so I stayed at the dining room table, peeking over the tabletop to see what was happening.

My dad walked out the door briefly and returned, holding a plastic bag. By the looks of the handles, it was heavy.

“Check this out, Logan. This way, you can see,” my dad said. (Logan’s my government name)

I scrambled my skinny behind out of the chair and started doing what five-year-olds do when they have to sit still (I danced). Meanwhile, my dad opened the plastic bag and pulled out the contents: a Yellow Pages.

AKA: my new booster seat. (And I was thrilled.)

I hopped back on the chair and scootched onto the phonebook (now my throne), content and feeling much more “in the loop” now that I could see.

Thinking about this memory and its absolute innocence wouldn’t be complete without Intrusive Thought screeching like a crackhead at the 7-Eleven, “hAsn’T aDveRTisInG ComE a lONg wAY???”

So instead of relaxing this morning, let’s talk about ads, specifically, what kinds of ads are there and how we can consistently get bomb a*s results from our efforts. Let’s get into it.

What is a marketing ad?

A marketing ad promotes a product or service by highlighting the benefits of using the product or service. The main goal of these ads is to convince potential customers to buy products or services. For example, a commercial for a new car may show how great the car is and talk about its features. This type of ad will usually have a lot of text so that people who see it can read it.

Another type of marketing ad is a social media ad, where people post pictures on sites such as Facebook and Twitter to advertise their products and services. They may also mention where they bought their products and when they bought them. This ad style, also called “user-generated content” (UGC), is used to connect with other people, build relationships, and promote the brand’s services, products, and labels.

The best mediums to promote your ads on are:

Display advertising (Wide reach)
Video advertising (More engagement, personal feel)
Mobile advertising (Widespread)
Native advertising (Subtle advertising, high intent)

Display advertising

Display ads are a type of online advertisement that combines text, images, and a URL that links to a site where the customers can learn more about a product. This ad can have a single image or be animated with multiple photos, videos, and changing text.

Google Display Network, Taboola, and AdRoll (among others) all “rent” space on websites that you can, in turn, pay to show your ads on.

Video advertising

YouTube and TikTok are both video ad platforms for sharing your video ads. These ads can be great for building engagement and making sales. They give information about the brand accompanied by a call-to-action button.

When using video ads for brand awareness, ensure you discuss your mission, vision, and values in place of your product or service.

Mobile advertising

Mobile advertising involves advertising products, services, and brands through smartphones and tablets. It's often done in the form of a banner form containing text.

Unless your target audience is heavy mobile users or your product is a mobile app, I wouldn’t recommend starting with mobile advertising. Instead, try one of the other methods before approaching this one.

Native advertising

Native advertising is a less visible (but still effective) way to promote your products online or in print. It’s also known as sponsored content. This is when a company pays to have its brand or product featured on the same websites that would otherwise contain news articles and blog posts.

For example, suppose you were reading an article on the Forbes website about food waste. In this case, you might encounter “sponsored content,” promoting a food waste solution.

Other forms of native advertising include native branding (when brands appear as part of an editorial article) and ‘native advertising banners’ (where brands appear as small images at the bottom of a website page).

Native ads are an often-overlooked strategy but they’re effective at driving results from their subtle placement and promotion to engaged, high-intent readers backed by the host’s authority.

Targeting strategies

Targeting is identifying your ideal audience and advertising to them through different channels. Each advertising platform’s targeting options are so varied that it’s nearly impossible to cover them in a dedicated blog, let alone a single article. However, generally speaking, you can target locations, genders, demographics, and keywords, and on more advanced platforms like Facebook and Instagram, you can target behaviors and interests.

Intent

The intent behind searches and content is where conversion-focused brand marketing starts to take footing. Is the audience’s intention to find out information, research, or buy?

Advertising strategies for lead generation

Lead generation attracts prospects to your business and makes them interested through nurturing. There are many advertising strategies for lead generation.

A few lead generation tips:

Simplify your landing page
Always use sales intelligence and analytics
Understand your competitors
Refine and plug the leaks in your sales funnel
Use a combination of organic and paid lead generation
Retarget your lead campaigns
Start networking and monitor social media
Always include gaming tools

Audience segmentation

A marketing strategy based on identifying subgroups within the target audience to deliver more messages and strong connections is an audience segmentation strategy. The subgroups are based on demographic such as geographic location, age, gender, income, and level of education.

Personalized ads

Personalized advertising was formerly known as interest-based advertising. It enables the advertiser to reach users based on their interests and demographics. It’s a powerful tool that increases the ROI for advertisers. We want to toe the edge of personalization without edging into creepy territory.

The keys to advertising success

No matter what platform or medium you choose for your ads, you should follow these guidelines for success:

Set your goal(s)
Set your budget
Decide on the campaign structure.
Make a keyword bidding list – See Also: How to do keyword research
Use ad extensions
Set up conversion tracking pixels

Enjoyed this article? You can read more from LJ here. If you'd like to contribute to Revenue Marketing Alliance, check out our contributors page.