Imagine having the ability to narrow down potential customers based on what they’ve searched for in their past. Their interests. The websites they’ve visited… even their age, location and gender.
Sound scary?
Well it should be… For your competitors!
With the popularity of the internet and social media as an advertising platform, the ability to target an audience this specific is now a reality.
By showing your product or service to an audience that is interested in what you offer or if there are certain demographics that makes people more likely to be interested… You can boost the effectiveness of your ads tenfold.
Because of this, running ads targeting a specific audience can be one of the most powerful and effective ways to grow and scale your business, while at the same time leaving your competition in the dust.
With that being said, making sure your ad campaign is targeting the correct audience is the #1 MOST IMPORTANT variable to consider!
If your ads aren’t showing to the right audience then you may as well be burning your money.
Here are the different ways you can target your audience on Google Ads that will boost the conversion rate of your ads:
1) Demographics Targeting
With demographics targeting, you can show your ads to people based on their location, age, gender and device type that they use.
Location:
Google gives you the ability to target OR exclude an audience based on their location. A person’s location can be narrowed all the way down to their postal code, making it an extremely effective tool for audience targeting.
This targeting can be based on:
Presence – People in or regularly in your targeted locations
Search Interest – People searching for your targeted locations
An effective way of using location targeting is to research into the communities you’re targeting. Factoring in things such as average income, number of people in a household, cultural groups, etc. which you can find in a statistics Census will give you a huge advantage in your targeting.
Age:
Does your product have more appeal towards a certain age group?
Google breaks down age groups into 6 different categories, allowing you to target age groups ranging from 18-65+.
Gender:
Does your product have more appeal towards a certain gender?
Household Income:
Does your product appeal to prospects making a certain amount of income (This demographic is only available in countries such as the United States)?
Devices:
Do you know what type of device the majority of your traffic is using when searching for your product or service? Knowing this type of data can help you with optimizing your landing pages for mobile and desktop.
2) Audience Targeting
The next method of targeting involves expanding or narrowing your audience based on their characteristics.
What their interests and habits are, what they’re actively searching for and if they’ve interacted with your business (or similar) in the past as well as a combination of these variables can be used in audience targeting.
For example, if you are selling workout equipment then you may want to target an in-market audience that shows an interest in ‘Sports & Fitness’ along with the keywords you've chosen.
If you aren’t sure what type of people would like your product or if it’s the first-time running ads, you can use this to do research into the type of audiences that would be interested in your product or service.
This is also a great way to A/B split test and optimize your ad performance once you know the type of audience you want to be targeting.
3) Keyword Targeting
The final and most important thing you need to consider for proper audience targeting is selecting the correct keywords.
The best type of lead is someone who is actively searching for your product or service right now. If you’re able to figure out what that person would type into that search box and show your ad to them at that moment, then that lead has a much higher chance of converting.
If you want a more in-depth view on keywords, please look at my previous article here where I go into the different types of keywords, negative keywords, search intent and what you should consider when selecting the correct keywords.
Conclusion
Google gives us a wide variety of ways to target your ideal audience.
By taking into consideration demographics, audience characteristics as well as the type of keywords used when searching… You can narrow down your audience and make your ads as effective as possible at converting anyone who may show an interest in your ad.
Justin Salve
Justin specializes in ad lead generation and generating revenue through sales funnels. His journey into Digital Marketing began with Lean On Meals and STC Barbershop, first developing his skills in content marketing and paid advertising. He has then gone on to have great success with a variety of small businesses, implementing marketing strategies to generate leads and revenue for many of our clients.