5 Online Advertising Methods to Target Consumers

Have you ever caught yourself in the following situation? 
 
Online browsing, and you get an ad that makes you say, “How did they know I want that? Is my phone listening to me?”  
 
The short answer is, yes. The longer answer is digital advertising through Google or social media platforms like Facebook is incredibly advanced and intricate. Today we would like to discuss different ways you can target customers and attract them using advanced targeting. 

Retargeting 

If you have been on a website and later see ads on your social media for products that website offers, congratulations! You have been retargeted. There are many different forms and ways of retargeting, but what we want to discuss is how powerful it is. By putting a piece of code on a specific page, you can then track a person who lands on that page.  By directing people to a specific landing page, with the right code on it, you can start to populate an audience to retarget. 

Lookalike/Similar Audiences 

As you dig into digital marketing you will see many platforms use terms that are slightly different but mean the same thing. Facebook lookalike audiences and Google similar audiences are just that. They use their own algorithms to come up with a target audience that looks like an audience you have already made. Do you have 1,000 people who have been on your website in the last month? Similar/Lookalike audiences will create another one that includes people who have similar attributes to the people that have landed on your website, and therefore may be good customers.  

Emails 

Do you wonder why everyone from your plumber to the bookstore want your email? It’s because emails are a form of digital currency. If you have enough emails, you can make a list of people to target via online ads who have already used your product or service. This is a great way to build brand loyalty, and those lookalike/similar audiences we mentioned above. You can use them to build audiences based off your email lists as well.  

Geographic location 

Geographic advertising can be used in different ways. You can: target by postal code, target by a certain KM radius around your business to bring in people nearby, you can also exclude certain geographic areas while including others. This allows you to be very specific in the area you target, which ensures the right people are seeing your ads. This is something that bus ads and billboards could never do…and at a cheaper price point as well! 

Messenger Apps and Text 

Most people spend a lot of time on their phones so it makes sense that you can target them there. Messenger apps like ManyChat allow you to use AI to interact with customers, helping them get to a specific outcome. Customers can also sign up to get text alerts about sales and geographic reminders. 

All of these methods can be used in tandem to get better results. If you want to talk about building your digital ads, please give us a call at 780-616-3120 or e-mail us at [email protected].