Google AdWords is one of the most powerful and influential marketing tools available today.
Although the mechanics of using the AdWords tool are fairly straightforward, identifying specific customers to target is as much an art as it is a science. Identifying your ideal customer’s demographics can be tricky, but it’s worth every minute you invest. Fortunately, Google allows you to be extremely specific in choosing who will see your pay-per-click (PPC) ads, offering a vast array of characteristics, behaviors and geographic locations from which to select.
Depending on your product or service, you have (hopefully) already identified your target demographics. Although the usual suspects of demographic identification include age, gender, geographic location and income level, you can include many other characteristics today. Defining a target market, although it may sound simplistic, is one of the most difficult but important parts of building a business. In a competitive market full of powerful marketing tools, you can’t afford to be too general.
If you’re unsure about how to identify your targets, begin by looking at your historical data. If your data isn’t reliable or if you’re a startup, determine who your closest, most successful competitors target. Failing all else, carefully analyze your business model and determine whose problems you can most effectively solve. Include the Big Four characteristics noted above, but also consider family status, education, job or occupation, lifestyle, hobbies and interests. Be creative and don’t be afraid to be too specific. Your marketing dollars will go further.
Once you have identified every relevant characteristic of your target market, it’s time to put that data to work in Google AdWords. Demographic targeting allows you to be as specific as you’d like, but it also allows you to exclude certain demographics. If you have multiple groups to target, AdWords lets you design unique ads to target each group. Next, decide which keywords and phrases you wish to include in your ads. Finally, take advantage of Google’s language and device targeting tools. If you hope to market primarily to Spanish speakers or to those who access the Internet using a smartphone or tablet, AdWords lets you do exactly that.
Whether you want to market to every person in a specific country or residents of a small radius around your business location, AdWords’ location targeting feature makes sure you reach the right prospects. AdWords also provides the option of choosing nearby and related locations, which Google suggests based on your selections.
Location groups are another exceptionally powerful way to ensure your ads reach the right targets. You can select location groups based on a radius around a specific point, whether the targets live there or they visit there regularly. You can even target a specific place of interest. For example, you can use this tool to market to nearby university students or to visitors who have just arrived at your city’s airport. You can also target specific demographics within a given location.
While all of Google’s marketing and advertising tools are powerful, AdWords is particularly versatile, especially for narrowing down your target audience to only those customers you wish to reach. By identifying a specific audience, you can stretch your pay-per-click (PPC) advertising dollars much further than a non-targeted, global campaign.
Take care to make sound choices, however, or your valuable marketing dollars may not be as effective as you’d like. To ensure that you’re targeting the right customers, contact Be Locally SEO to help you set up and administer your Google AdWords campaigns.