Reach The Right Audience With AdWords Demographic Targeting

The role of a marketer has always been to place a product in front of those who are likely to purchase it, at a time when they need it. This basic principle still applies in the world of digital marketing, in fact, it could be argued that it is now more important than ever before. Today, an unoptimised digital marketing campaign will quickly deplete its budget before ever reaching a real customer.

Beyond Keywords

Keyword targeting has been central to search engine marketing since AdWords was first launched – displaying adverts to users who have just typed in a keyword search phrase that perfectly matches the search terms that you are bidding on is a sure way to reach your market – at least, this was always assumed to be the case. However, the Internet has moved on and this has given rise to new and better opportunities. Targeting users by keyword alone will spread your marketing net far too wide, and many visitors will likely be outside of your target demographic.

Social networks changed this. Facebook was built on the idea of gather information about individuals, and this data was soon used to help businesses target potential new customers. Suddenly businesses could target customers by age, gender, location, and a range of other factors that were simply unavailable previously. However, even with targeting focused to the correct demographic, it is not possible for many businesses to really know when an individual will need their product.

Where Facebook fails is that it is only possible to target an entire audience based on location or interests – it cannot predict when a person wants a product, and the result is that many ads are displayed to people who simply do not wish to buy anything.

Combine Purchase Intent and Demographics?

While targeting both by purchase intent and demographics is highly rewarding, there is not currently a way to effectively combine these. But, Google is making some exciting progress, which we can already offer you through their Google AdWords platform.

AdWords Introduces Demographic Targeting

AdWords cannot provide the same level of detailed demographic targeting as Facebook, simply because it cannot be sure who specifically is carrying out a search. But Google can make a very well educated guess about who is searching, which it determines based on a variety of factors such as search history, IP address, and stored cookies. However, it is when people are logged in to Google that the system becomes very powerful.

It is now possible to target the following groups with your AdWords ads:

Age Groups

• 18-24
• 25-34
• 35-44
• 45-54
• 55-64
• 65+
• Unknown

Gender

• Male
• Female
• Unknown

For the average Google AdWords account, around 50% of all searchers will be classified as “unknown”, but this does mean that for half your market, you can target people by age or gender. Whether your target market is middle-aged men, or young women, you are now able to display ads just for them, and this should help reach a more engaged audience.

If you need help setting up and optimising your AdWords account, speak to our PPC consultants today who will explain to you what we can do to make your advertising campaign work better for your business.