Display Ads Targeting Guide 2023

Mostly all advertising these days are targeted, especially the successful ones. It just means you are focusing your advertising dollars on reaching a specific set of people because you believe they are the most likely to respond well to your ad message.

Try selling diapers to a non-parent for example and stand back to witness a floppy marketing experience.

Ads targeting enables more user-relevant and compelling messages and the potential for reaching only those with specific pain points addressed by the ad.

However, the form and degree of targeting vary according to the ad type and this article will expose you to all the display?ad targeting?options.

What is Display Ads Targeting?

Display ads?targeting is the billboard part of your display campaigns on the Google Display Network (DPN).

Ads targeting is a powerful tool that puts your ads in front of the right audience in the right spots so they know about you.

If you do it right, prospects take notice of your ad. Then, because they appreciate your savvy ad swagger, they click through to your landing page to learn more about what might get them where they intend to be.

You could say ad targeting is the linchpin of any campaign because it defines (and refines) where you show ads to reach more prospects.

Display Ads Targeting Options

#1. Target by audience segments

You can reach people based on what they like, what they are shopping for, what they recently bought, or how they have interacted with your business in the past.

You can reach them when they are browsing websites, watching videos, or using an app on their phone.

Audience segmentation allows you to do the following:

#1. Define your?target audience

#2. Tailor your ad messaging

#3. Help push up conversion rates

#4. Build customer loyalty

#5. Draw in new leads

When a customer feels like a message was written just for them, they are more likely to be receptive to what you have to say. Segmentation makes that sort of personalization possible.

Most marketing campaigns begin with the creation of a customer persona, or a mock-up personality meant to mirror your ideal customer.

That persona can include where that individual works, whether they are married, and what their pastimes are.

Personas allow you to communicate with your customers on their level, especially when it comes to identifying their pain points and how you can help solve them. Once you create those personas, you can separate them into groups and target your message better at them.

#2. Demographic Display Ads Targeting

Demographic targeting is the way to go with your marketing if you want to target people based on their age, gender, parental status, or household income.

To sell a product effectively, you must understand who you are trying to reach. Demographics mirror customers’ characteristics, which you can leverage to create more tailored marketing campaigns.

The business can leverage demographic information to develop?marketing strategies?that appeal to different customer types.

Creating tailored marketing efforts for each market can serve as an effective method of retaining and attracting customers into your?sales funnel.

#3. Keywords Display Ads Targeting

Select keywords, and then type in your website or product to discover new keyword ideas, including the most relevant ones for your business along with reach estimates.

Sometimes your ads may show on placements that appear unrelated to your keywords. Depending on your keyword setting, your ads rather may show to audiences based on their recent browsing history or other factors, instead of the content of the page they are currently viewing.

?Let’s say that you are a landscaping service and you are trying to use the Display ads to get cheaper leads with the keyword tree stump removal.

You might include keywords around tree removal.?Google Ads?will find relevant sites that include your keywords as well as relevant audiences interested in those keywords. Try to?choose keywords?that are relevant to whole ad groups and not just a single ad.

#4. Placement Display Ads Targeting

It is nothing but choosing the websites where you would like to show your ads within the Google Display Ad Network.

The placement could be within a site, a video, an app, or any other individual ad unit. With placement targeting, the idea is to put your ad in front of people who may be interacting with your business or similar to yours and have shown interest.

This is the only type of ad placement that gives you granular control over your ads campaigns. Whereas, when you utilize topic or interest targeting which can also be automatic placements, you are allowing Google to take control of all your ad decisions.

When it comes to Managed Placements, you choose or add websites or videos where your ads will appear and have better control of the message to those consumers who are on those placements which makes it more relevant for your business.

That is why this is the most recommended option and delivers the best market results for your Display?ad campaigns.

For GDN campaigns, the?CTR?is below 0.5% for all industries according to the SmartInsights report.

When we talk about?search campaigns, the click-through rate (CTR) is somewhere between 3-4%.

Then why do brands still run Display Ads even when the CTR is low?

GDN does what Search campaigns may not necessarily do. GDN campaigns offer you higher brand visibility and recognition.

Hence by focusing on serving ads to consumers and prospects in the right place and right time, you will have higher chances of boosting engagement and click-through rates.

But a lot of times, people are so sick of seeing?banner ads?that aren’t relevant to them, and that is why their minds have become trained to ignore them easily.

With?audience targeting?alone, users see so many irrelevant display ads that 86% of them say they have developed banner blindness, according to a study by InfoLinks.

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