Before the golden era of the internet, it was difficult for customers to escape ads. If you were watching TV or listening to your radio, you had no choice except to watch or hear the commercials. But, today, with customers having more control over what they can view, ‘ad blindness’ is a growing trend.
Rather than watching an ad, customers prefer to skip them, thereby crashing the hope of marketers who wanted to hit the ball out of the park with their great advertisements.
As a result, marketers are shifting their focus on targeted advertising to expose ads to customers who are likely to show interest in their products or services.
Without ad targeting, you send your ads to thousands of customers and hope that the right people will see your advertisements. Targeted advertising is taking us far away from the guessing game and creating campaigns based on sophisticated science.
This helps in reducing the chances of your eCommerce customers ignoring your ads.
With that in mind, let’s revisit some practical tips to step up your audience’s target advertisement game.
Ready?
6 Actionable Tips to Guide You with Targeted Advertising
Effective targeted advertising means increased conversion for your eCommerce business while lowering your cost per conversion. Read on to learn about six actionable tips to get the most of your advertising budget.
Get permission from customers.
With data becoming the new currency that keeps the wheel of advertising spinning in this competitive marketing world, customers are completely unaware of the extent to which eCommerce companies use their data to target products or services.
This led to the launch of various data privacy laws, which has completely overturned the landscape of target advertising.
As a result, eCommerce companies need to adhere to data privacy laws like the Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act or CDPA, which comes effectively from January 2023.
According to this law, for an eCommerce business to carry out behavioral advertising, they have to provide opt-out rights for targeted advertising and seek customer consent for using their data. Thus, it helps in giving customers more control over their data.
While customers are relatively happy sharing some amount of data for value in exchange, they seek more control and transparency.
Adhering to these data privacy laws can ensure that your targeted advertisement doesn’t breach the laws and you don’t face any lawsuit for non-compliance. With customers looking for brands that can successfully reassure that their data exchanges are fruitful and their collected data is securely stored, following these data privacy laws is the best way to win the trust of digital customers.
Key takeaway: Don’t neglect your audience’s right to privacy and never abuse the permission they’ve given you.
Implement Google shopping ads
One popular strategy for eCommerce targeted advertising is using Google shopping ads. It shows your potential customers’ products related to their Google query or search. For example, upon searching the word ‘baby clothes,’ Google displays the following targeted ads.
Using these narrowly targeted ads for your eCommerce products is a great way to drive more sales without overshooting your marketing budget.
That’s because Google uses machine learning and smart shopping campaigns to pre-vet customers and display targeted ads by showing products and prices. As a result, it ensures your business gets only highly targeted clicks.
Interestingly, combining the Google Shopping ads with programs like Google Shopping Action, you can access customer’s behavior on Google Assistant. It can help you reach shoppers on their Google Home device.
Key takeaway: With Google Shopping ads, your eCommerce business is likely to witness an increase in the conversion and click-through rate because you’re targeting customers who already had an interaction with your brand.
Pixel your campaign
Have you ever visited a website only to have ads magically follow you to other websites and social media platforms?
That’s because the first website you visited was using marketing pixels, also called tracking pixels.
These short snippets of codes can help transform your ads and ensure your customers see hyper-targeted ads when used correctly.
Business vector created by stories – www.freepik.com
Pixels gather helpful information about your website visitors and give details about any actions they took on your eCommerce website. This helps in sending relevant ads.
You can place your pixels on your online properties like your eCommerce website and campaign to collect rich data about your customers. Collecting such data allows you to improve your ad targeting and provide a more personalized shopping experience.
By understanding that a shopper on your website loves to browse sports shoes, you can offer your shopper more information about the different sports shoes and engage to another level.
Interestingly, by placing the tracking pixel on your check-out page, you can track actions after clicking on your ad and effectively measure your campaign’s ROI.
Key takeaway: Do install your marketing pixel before running any marketing campaign for the best results.
Know your clickers and converters
Your business can collect details about who is engaging and who your actual shopper is by installing a marketing pixel. For example, you can see who clicked your ads and what they do on arriving on your eCommerce website. Do they search for products, look for discounts, browse or leave items in their shopping cart?
Using this crucial data, you can build a database comprising clickers and converters. These are shoppers who are more likely to purchase from your online business. As they’re your potential revenue generator, you should focus your upcoming marketing campaigns on them.
Analyzing the data can help in understanding everything about your shoppers. For example, information about their demographics, interest, location, behavior, and preferences like online shopping habits enables you to target ads more precisely.
This prevents wasting money on shoppers who are least likely to purchase from you.
For example, you might think that your target audience for infant clothes is new moms in the age group of 25 to 44. However, your audience profile reports that people who are most likely to click on your ads are men in the age group of 20-35, looking for new clothes for their newborns.
So, instead of targeting your advertisements on new moms, try targeting new dads and see if your click-through rate witnesses a rise.
Key takeaway: Basing your target audience decision based on data is essential as it removes any scope of guesswork.
Personalize your message
With the ultimate aim of a marketing campaign is to generate revenue, it makes sense to send messages that resonate. This is because not every shopper who visits your website will respond to the same message. Using insights from your audience data, you can tailor messages to your audience’s preferences and interests.
That way, you can generate a higher level of engagement compared to creating a single ad for all your customers.
For example, if your audience data tell that shoppers who are most likely to click on your ads are people who love soccer, you may consider including soccer in your next marketing campaign. Even if the products you offer have nothing to do with soccer, including it would only boost your ad engagement.
Website vector created by stories – www.freepik.com
Interestingly, through in-depth analyses, you can decode those different shoppers who respond to discounts, free shipping, and offers.
For example, suppose you’re selling electronic items. In that case, you might discover that shoppers (in the age group of 25-44 years) interested in your products respond best to free home delivery, while those in the age group of 45 and above respond best to discounts.
So, when creating ads for these two segments of shoppers, alter your CTA based on your preference.
The above example is just one instance of how you can personalize your targeted advertising for maximum benefit.
Key takeaway: Use your audience insight to create versions of ads for different segments and witness an increase in click-through rate and sales.
Focus on the engagement data
Not all your website visitors are equal. Some may happen to be on your website by chance, some may accidentally click your ad, while others may be on your website for making a purchase.
Why waste your marketing budget on shoppers who spend very little time on your eCommerce website?
So, it’s advised to target only those users who spend a considerable amount of time browsing and searching for products. It can also help decode the segment of your audience that spends the maximum time on your website.
Key takeaway: Don’t burn your advertising budget on shoppers who happen to be on your website – consider their engagement level before sending targeted ads.
Using targeted advertising for the win
Armed with these targeted advertising tips for your eCommerce business, you can pinpoint people who want to buy or hear from your business. Delivering such people with targeted ads that are highly relevant and useful can put the ball in your court.
Today, targeted ads are a perfect option to acquire new leads, push them down your sales funnel, and re-engage your loyal customers. When done right, targeted advertising can produce unmatchable results and put your eCommerce business on the internet map.
So, use these six actionable tips to step up your audience’s target advertisement game!
Go and put these tips into action right away!
Author’s Bio
Priya Jain is a professional copywriter with 8 years of experience. She has an MBA and engineering degree. When she is not writing, you will find her teaching math, spending her day running behind her toddler, and trying new recipes. You can follow her on LinkedIn and Twitter.
