"How can we reach a more tailored audience?"
This is one of the most repeated questions that our clients ask us. We give them the option of Display or even Paid Social and they'll get excited about the targeting options offered by these platforms, particularly as they can use existing clients' email lists for social media campaigns. However, everything changes when we forecast conversion rates, which are typically far lower than those seen in Search.
Until now, Social Media has been the perfect place to get closer to your target audience (albeit with a lower chance of achieving conversions) and Search has been the weapon of choice to achieve conversions, but it's argued that there's still some way to go in terms of reaching exactly who we want.
We recently saw Google move to address this issue when demographic targeting was added to Search campaigns, remarking lists for search ads (RLSA) and, most recently, Gmail Sponsored Promotions (GSP's). And then Google delighted us with another surprise: Customer Match.
Now, for the first time, advertisers can use their email databases to reach previous customers with tailored ads based on what's already known about their preferences and interests. Google AdWords is starting to catch up with Facebook's targeting options, with the added bonus of being able to spread campaigns across platforms such as YouTube, Gmail and Search. This much-desired layer of persona targeting is a welcome update from Google, and I predict this is just the beginning of more great things to come our way in terms of improving targeting options.
Remarketing has become one of the most repeated words in the pay-per-click (PPC) world and clients are starting to like it more and more. There's no doubt that Google will keep developing ideas and adding new features to ensure a more effective and progressive approach to persona targeting.
What else can we expect in 2016? Lookalike Audiences available for Search? Remarketing using Customer Match lists available for mobile app installs and universal app campaigns? Time will tell, but it's looking to be a very promising year for Paid Media indeed.
