Master PPC Targeting For More High-Quality Traffic & Conversions

Have you been look­ing for new ways to dri­ve high-qual­i­ty traf­fic to your web­site? PPC tar­get­ing, also known as pay-per-click audi­ence tar­get­ing is one of the best ways to widen your brand reach. Although imple­ment­ing PPC adver­tis­ing may seem intim­i­dat­ing ini­tial­ly, it is a unique oppor­tu­ni­ty to gain vis­i­bil­i­ty when applied strate­gi­cal­ly. We’ll show you how to cre­ate and reach PPC tar­gets while dri­ving the kind of high-qual­i­ty traf­fic you are look­ing for to your website. 

What is PPC Targeting? 

PPC tar­get­ing refers to a method of con­sumer seg­men­ta­tion that is based on demo­graph­ic data. Hav­ing a thor­ough under­stand­ing of your tar­get audi­ence is the first step of devel­op­ing any kind of mar­ket­ing cam­paign. When cre­at­ing PPC tar­gets, know­ing your poten­tial customer’s lifestyle and pref­er­ences will help cre­ate align­ment in your mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy. Whether you choose to use Google Ads or Microsoft Ads, the typ­i­cal demo­graph­ic infor­ma­tion you should col­lect includes: 

• Age
• Loca­tion
• Gen­der
• Inter­ests
• Income 

The more infor­ma­tion you col­lect, the bet­ter you will under­stand the buyer’s jour­ney. This infor­ma­tion will give you an idea of what poten­tial cus­tomers are look­ing for on the inter­net and how to reach them. Using your resources effec­tive­ly and effi­cient­ly will save you time and mon­ey. Even promi­nent com­pa­nies like Net­flix use PPC tar­get­ing to improve their rec­om­men­da­tions and boost viewership!

How does PPC Targeting Work?

PPC tar­get­ing con­tains two ele­ments called first and third-par­ty data. You can use both types of data for cus­tomer seg­men­ta­tion based on your busi­ness goals. One of the most effec­tive ways to use this infor­ma­tion is to cre­ate buy­er per­sonas and cus­tomer per­son­al­iza­tion. PPC tar­gets uti­lize both forms of data to cre­ate suc­cess­ful ad campaigns: 

• First-par­ty data — This type of data con­sists of every­thing about a customer’s inter­ests and demo­graph­ics that are cap­tured by the busi­ness through cook­ies, brows­er stor­age, or infor­ma­tion sent from web­sites to the user’s computer. 
• Third-par­ty data — This type of data con­sists of infor­ma­tion secured from an out­side source. Since this infor­ma­tion is not gath­ered by the busi­ness, it will need to be fil­tered before it is used. 

How to use PPC Targeting for Business

PPC tar­get­ing is the foun­da­tion of a suc­cess­ful online adver­tis­ing cam­paign. When the wrong PPC tar­gets are in place, you will reach the wrong cus­tomers and gen­er­ate no rev­enue. For high-qual­i­ty traf­fic from the right audi­ence, PPC tar­gets should be set up using a com­bi­na­tion of the fol­low­ing components: 

• Demo­graph­ics — To ade­quate­ly reach your tar­get audi­ence, you should know who they are. PPC tar­gets work best when they are devel­oped using demo­graph­ic data. Before tak­ing this step, qual­i­ta­tive and quan­ti­ta­tive con­ver­sion data should be col­lect­ed using Google Ana­lyt­ics. This will pro­vide a com­pre­hen­sive view of the age and gen­der of your web­site vis­i­tors and where your PPC tar­gets should be focused. Oth­er infor­ma­tion that can be used includes: 
  • Lan­guage
  • Rela­tion­ship and parental status
  • Income
  • Polit­i­cal affiliation

Com­bine qual­i­ta­tive data with the use of cus­tomer sur­veys and 1‑on‑1 inter­views to get a clear­er pic­ture of who your cur­rent and poten­tial cus­tomers are. When you’ve con­nect­ed con­ver­sions to demo­graph­ic data, you can use Google Ads or Face­book to run ads. 

• Cor­po­rate net­work­ing — If your con­ver­sion research shows that your prod­ucts or ser­vices are bet­ter suit­ed for B2B, then LinkedIn is a viable option for cor­po­rate PPC tar­get­ing cam­paigns. Some PPC tar­gets to include are: 
  • Com­pa­ny name
  • Com­pa­ny industry
  • Com­pa­ny size
  • Title
  • Job senior­i­ty
  • Job func­tion
  • Edu­ca­tion
  • Degrees
  • Skills
  • Groups
  • Age

Research shows that most PPC tar­get­ing cam­paigns are done on Face­book mak­ing LinkedIn a less com­pet­i­tive space for B2B mar­ket­ing. LinkedIn ads are also small and the acqui­si­tion costs are high­er. Even then, some experts will argue that it’s a bet­ter plat­form for busi­ness-dri­ven individuals.

You can address these chal­lenges by cre­at­ing clar­i­ty in your val­ue propo­si­tion and revi­tal­iz­ing your ads reg­u­lar­ly to avoid ad fatigue. 

• Con­ver­sion tar­get­ing — As each buy­er goes through the buy­ing cycle before mak­ing a pur­chase, they will expe­ri­ence var­i­ous stages that include aware­ness, con­sid­er­a­tion, pur­chase, and advo­ca­cy. To increase your con­ver­sion rates, you want to tar­get poten­tial cus­tomers who are in the con­sid­er­a­tion stage since they are con­sid­er­ing their options. These cus­tomers will spend more time com­par­i­son shop­ping before committing. 

The mes­sag­ing that you will use with a cus­tomer in the con­sid­er­a­tion stage will be very dif­fer­ent from that of the aware­ness stage. This tech­nique is called con­ver­sion intent tar­get­ing and is avail­able through Microsoft Ads and Google Ads Search. Things to con­sid­er when imple­ment­ing intent tar­get­ing are: 

• • It’s easy — Even though Google Ads and Microsoft Ads make intent tar­get­ing eas­i­er, you should always tai­lor your val­ue propo­si­tion and cre­ative efforts to the appro­pri­ate buy­ing stage. 
  • Mea­sure thor­ough­ly — When it comes to mea­sur­ing effec­tive­ness, key­words that result in a click or pur­chase may not pro­vide the whole pic­ture. A more detailed per­spec­tive should include iden­ti­fy­ing the key­words with the largest pur­chase and low­est cost per sale. 
  • Under­stand match types — Spend time under­stand­ing match types and the per­for­mance implications. 
• Geo­graph­ic tar­get­ing - You don’t have to be a local adver­tis­er to use geo­graph­ic tar­get­ing tools. By start­ing sim­ple and scal­ing, you can mon­i­tor your per­for­mance by spe­cif­ic areas of the coun­try or zip codes. Being pur­pose­ful by using Google Ana­lyt­ics to make an edu­cat­ed guess about where to run ads can inform oth­er aspects of a mar­ket­ing cam­paign. There are a cou­ple of ben­e­fits of geo­graph­ic tar­get­ing whether you are a local or nation­al adver­tis­er, including: 
  • Per­son­al­iza­tion — A per­son­al­ized expe­ri­ence can be cre­at­ed start­ing with the key­board to the land­ing page. 
  • Trends — Iden­ti­fy­ing trends and improved seg­men­ta­tion can be achieved through the use of geo­graph­ic targeting. 

• Behav­ior pre­dic­tion — Pre­dict­ing future con­sumer behav­ior can be a sig­nif­i­cant advan­tage in PPC tar­get­ing. The best way to accom­plish this is through the use of inter­ests, behav­ior, and top­ic tar­get­ing tech­niques. Face­book and Google Ads Dis­play make behav­ior pre­dic­tion easy: 
  • Inter­ests — Also referred to as affin­i­ty audi­ences, this seg­men­ta­tion groups peo­ple based on what they like and view online. 
  • Behav­ior — This seg­men­ta­tion is based on third-par­ty data.
  • Top­ics — Groups based on sim­i­lar top­ics like enter­tain­ment, arts, events, and more. 
• Retar­get and dupli­cate — When you’ve mas­tered the basics of PPC tar­get­ing, you can begin to retar­get and dupli­cate audi­ences. Since the con­ver­sion research has been com­plet­ed through this process, you can do more with this valu­able infor­ma­tion using these tools: 
  • Retar­get­ing — When you want to win back poten­tial buy­ers who vis­it­ed your web­site while com­par­i­son shop­ping or are not ready to make a pur­chase, retar­get­ing is the best tool. 
  • Looka­like audi­ences — Face­book can cre­ate looka­like audi­ences to match pre­vi­ous ones that you’ve iden­ti­fied through cus­tom audi­ences using leads or customers. 
  • Sim­i­lar audi­ences — You can also use Google Ads to cre­ate looka­like audiences. 

Benefits of PPC Targeting 

The last thing you want to do is waste your mon­ey by pub­lish­ing ads with­out con­sid­er­ing your poten­tial tar­get mar­ket. High-qual­i­ty traf­fic leads to a high return on invest­ment. When you imple­ment PPC tar­get­ing into your mar­ket­ing plan, you can expect: 

• Max­i­mize time and resources — By focus­ing on spec­i­fied groups of peo­ple, you can focus your ads and make the most of a mar­ket­ing bud­get. This can have a big impact on long-term strate­gies and bud­get man­age­ment. If you’re cre­at­ing mar­ket­ing cam­paigns on lim­it­ed resources, it’s even more essen­tial to get quick and cost-effec­tive solutions. 
• Sales fun­nel opti­miza­tion - The cus­tomer jour­ney can be described as a sales fun­nel. PPC tar­get­ing does the heavy lift­ing for poten­tial cus­tomers by pre­sent­ing what they need at the moment they begin look­ing for it online. When PPC tar­gets are appro­pri­ate­ly applied, a poten­tial cus­tomer may skip all buy­ing stages and make a purchase. 
• Cus­tomer reten­tion improve­ment — The cost of new cus­tomer acqui­si­tion can be high so pro­mot­ing cus­tomer loy­al­ty with PPC tar­gets tells the cus­tomer that you are lis­ten­ing. Hon­ing in on your cur­rent cus­tomer needs by using spe­cial pro­mo­tions for cur­rent cus­tomers will help you retain more cus­tomers. They will con­tin­ue to come back since you’ve pro­vid­ed them with the right prod­ucts or ser­vices each time they vis­it your site. 

We Can Help You Generate High-Quality Traffic

Most busi­ness own­ers are busy cre­at­ing new prod­ucts, pro­mo­tions, events, and con­nec­tions. By out­sourc­ing a PPC tar­get­ing cam­paign, you will have a ded­i­cat­ed team of SEO experts to focus on dri­ving high-qual­i­ty web traf­fic to your web­site. As award-win­ning inte­grat­ed mar­ket­ing spe­cial­ists, we under­stand that the key to a suc­cess­ful PPC tar­get­ing cam­paign is the abil­i­ty to con­vert this traf­fic into con­ver­sions. We get results for clients who part­ner with us and we can do the same for you. 

Give us a call today for a free mar­ket­ing audit and let’s dis­cuss how we can grow your business!