Creating an audience is not just a marketing strategy; it’s a journey towards creating lasting connections by improving initial conversion rates, then fostering brand loyalty, which leads to higher customer retention rates. In the world of marketing, delivering a clear message to a well-defined audience is like having a secret weapon that can make your campaigns hit the bullseye every time.
Why, you ask? Because it’s the key to unlocking meaningful, results-driven marketing campaigns.
Creating these audiences isn’t always easy, you may not know where to look. So, how do you go about it? Our head of Paid Media, Bianka gives a deep dive for you to discover effective ways to build your audience whilst exploring the tools & platforms that can make it all happen.
Google: Precision at Your Fingertips
When it comes to capturing demand, Google reigns supreme. Google Ads, the tech giant’s advertising platform, offers a treasure trove of tools to reach your ideal audience. In fact, Google Shopping ads make up around 76.4% of retail search ad spend.
As per HubSpot’s Annual State of Marketing Report, a significant 63% of individuals have engaged by clicking on a Google ad, with the ads generating 85.3% of all clicks on Adwords campaigns or Google Shopping campaigns.
Like most advertising platforms, you can target audiences based on demographics, gender and age, but with Google’s Display and Demand Gen products, it doesn’t stop there. Google offers precise audience segmentation tools such as custom audiences and lookalike audiences. These tools are your secret solution, allowing you to serve ads to users who are most likely to engage and convert.
One of Google’s gems is the in-market audience feature. It allows advertisers to target users who are actively seeking products or brands similar to yours. Imagine the power of reaching potential customers at the very moment they’re ready to make a purchase. It’s a game-changer for your campaign’s relevance and potential for conversions.
Meta: Dive into the Data Goldmine
In the third quarter of 2022, WhatsApp led the pack with an impressive 74% of internet users in its fold. Facebook secured the second spot with a substantial 70.7% of internet users on its platform. Following closely, Instagram and Facebook Messenger claimed the third and fourth position in the user engagement rankings.
Meta isn’t just about social networking; it’s a goldmine of data waiting to be tapped. The platform offers highly targeted marketing features, including detailed user profiling based on demographics, behaviours, and interests, hosting a total reachable audience of 2.11 billion people.
Custom Audiences and Lookalike Audiences are your magic wands on Meta. Custom Audiences allow you to target users based on data you’ve collected, like email lists or website visitors. Lookalike Audiences take things up a notch by finding users who resemble your existing customers. It’s like having a crystal ball to predict your next loyal customers.
But the fun doesn’t stop there. Meta offers a plethora of ad placement options, tracking tools like Facebook Pixel, dynamic ad formats, carousels and instant experience ad formats. Furthermore, Meta allows advertisers to perform brand lift studies, and detailed reports. Facebook ads have even been shown to reach 34.1% of the global population over the age of 13.
Amazon DSP: The E-Commerce Powerhouse
Given Amazon’s DSP platform’s reach to up to 400 million global consumers each month, it can prove highly effective in enhancing your brand’s visibility and connecting with audiences at different points along the customer journey. Offering advertisers full-funnel marketing opportunities both on and off of Amazon, even allowing them to choose between self-service and managed-service.
In 2023, Amazon’s average daily impressions are 86,417 with the average daily clicks on Amazon being around 302 per user. Leveraging Amazon’s first-party data, including purchase history and interests, DSP can help you target your audience with pinpoint accuracy.
Audience building is taken one step further on Amazon, as you can define precise audience segments, optimise creative content, and track campaign performance in real-time. The integration with Amazon Attribution provides a holistic view of your campaign’s effectiveness, allowing your advertising agency to fine-tune your strategy based on real-time data. It’s like having a control tower for your e-commerce campaigns.
By using the DSP platform, you gain access to AWS’ extensive user data, collected from various Amazon subsidiaries, such as Twitch, Amazon Music, Amazon Fresh, Amazon.com, Amazon Prime, Amazon Firestick, Amazon Alexa/Echo, and Kindle. This data enables precise ad targeting across these platforms, offering you a wide range of placement options, from podcasts to shopping, all within a single platform.
Amazon DSP also offers advanced campaign optimisation. It dynamically adjusts budgets, optimises ad placements, and analyses impressions to meet your goals, leveraging 500,000 customer shopping predictors.
Bianka’s top 5 tips:
Now that you’re armed with knowledge about these platforms, here are five tips from our Head of Paid Media, Bianka, to supercharge your audience creation efforts:
1. Know Your Market: First, determine the exact market size, including the full market potential, to understand your potential audience size and reach, based on active users. By taking it a step further, you can examine your audience’s interests and determine common denominators with the audience interests each ad platform offers.
2. Craft Customer Personas: Next, create customer personas to narrow down and prioritise individuals who are most likely to engage with your brand and eventually convert. These top-tier audiences should encompass their interests, similar business pages they engage with, age demographics, relationship status, education, and other relevant factors.
3. Compare Targeting Options: Proceed to compare targeting options on each channel, such as Google in-market audiences, Meta targeting, and Demand-Side Platforms (DSPs), and begin the process of refinement. Consider incorporating lookalike audiences derived from your newsletter subscribers or previous purchasers.
4. Custom-Built Audiences: As you transition into the intent phase, custom-built audiences become crucial. These audiences should include individuals who have interacted with your ads but haven’t made a purchase or those who follow your company’s page. They already exhibit initial brand affinity and some interest but have yet to take action, essentially encompassing more generic page viewers.
5. High-Intent Users: When you reach the decision stage, continue to utilise custom-built audiences but shift your focus to very high-intent users. This includes people who have added items to their cart, initiated the checkout process, and visitors who have spent a significant amount of time on your website, specifically targeting the top 25% of users based on their time spent on the website.
In conclusion, building audiences isn’t just a marketing tactic; it’s your ticket to success in the digital age. With platforms like Google, Meta, and Amazon DSP at your disposal, you have the tools to reach the right audience at the right time, boosting your campaign’s effectiveness and ROI. So, go ahead, start building your audience empire, and watch your campaigns soar to new heights!
If you want to amplify the perfect strategy to target an audience ideal for your campaigns, get in touch with an Arkenaut now.
