Ad targeting gains customers for advertisers and at the same time gains revenue for publishers.
It also is a partial answer to the dominance of online advertising by Google and Facebook with their ability to use contextual advertising (which also is a form of ad targeting).
Online targeted advertising is the ability to reach consumers based on their demographic, geographic and other types of individual data.
Google’s DoubleClick ad-serving software provides the ability to target by geography and other characteristics.
“DoubleClick for Publishers targets users by their IP addresses. Geo-targeting by IP address is generally very precise and reliable,” Google document say.
But it can target demographically only by using data collected by the site, such as from user registrations.
Advantages for Advertisers
d performance reports in DoubleClick show a correlation between ad targeting and improved click-through rates.
It’s also simply logical.
Let’s say a local online newspaper has of course the ability to reach a large number of people in the local market.
But analytic reports also show quite a few people from outside the market — and even outside the state and country — who reach the site via search engines because they found a random article of interest.
That local advertiser’s ad will offer little to no interest for an outsider who doesn’t shop in that market.
As a result, the click rate will be lower.
It benefits the advertiser to target the ad geographically. Targeting options include:
- Country
- State
- City
- Zip code
Advantages for Publishers
ublishers don’t need to hear from an unhappy client that the ad campaign isn’t delivering clicks.
It’s hard enough getting clicks because of the flood of Internet advertising. So it benefits the publisher to see a client’s campaign have a higher click rate.
A higher click rate also improves the chances of getting client retention.
Targeting also means more efficient use of inventory in one important way.
A site that uses remnant advertising will probably receive a much lower cost per thousand or cost per click with remnant.
A targeted campaign can put higher-paying clients in premium positions, pages and channels while putting remnant ads in less valuable inventory.
Keep in mind that ad targeting means the amount of available inventory will be smaller than a simple run of site campaign.
Competitive Advantages
oogle and Facebook dominate online advertising because of their ability to display contextual ads based on the content of the page that the visitor is viewing.
They also target geographically and demographically because of data collected from the registrations and profiles of their users.
Online publishers can take a step toward catching up with them by taking a few simple steps with geo targeting in particular.
The much bigger step takes place next — targeting demographically with user data.