Targeting Methods

The internet is a very crowded place. Over 3 and a half billion people use the internet regularly worldwide, which accounts for more than 46% of the world population. Finding the right target audience for your digital advert is key to a successful advertising campaign.

Each targeting method we use is individually strong, but when they are combined with specially designed algorithms and technology specifically tailored for audience tagreting, they become even more powerful and effective. Let us guide you through the jungle of different targeting methods and what they entail.

Contextual Targeting

Contextual targeting is advertising that is targeted to be relevant to the page’s content. The ads displayed on a website are related to the content that the users currently read. For example; a man reads an article about the Wimbledon tennis tournament on a news website. We register that the man is interested in tennis, and will be presented with an advertisement for a sports betting service. The likelihood that the man will click the banner or watch the video served to him is high since there is a clear contextual match with the article and the ad.

Topical Targeting

Topical targeting places certain adverts on sites known to be categorised with the same topic as the campaign. These sites are likely to have a high number of visitors from the target audience. For example; a campaign offering luxury accommodation in California is displayed on several home decor and country-living sites. People who regularly visit these sites are known to have a strong interest in housing. They are therefore likely to find the banner and video campaign interesting enough to click it since there is a topical relation between the content of the website and the advert.

Demographic Targeting

Adverts are served based on specific information provided by the user, such as; gender, age, language or geographical location. For example; a 29-year-old female living in London has registered a new email address on Gmail. The system presumes that she is interested in what’s on in her local area, she is therefore shown an advertisement for a newly opened gastropub down the road. The chance that she will find the ad relevant is high, as she lives within the same postcode area as the restaurant.

Behavioural Targeting

This is the most powerful targeting method since it is specifically tailored to user’s known interests, online persona and internet behaviour. The user’s online patterns are saved by their browser as cookies, which help to facilitate well-adapted and audience targeted marketing based on a user’s known browsing history, prior searches and persona. Tracked user data is continuously collected, added and sorted into specific audience segment indexes. Advertisers and publishers use this indexed data to align video placements to match users’ online personas and give them a personally tailored online experience. Segmented data is used as a filter and content will only be presented to users associated with specific targeting parameters. For example; a group of people read an article about the top 10 travel destinations in Europe. They also visit an airline’s website, sign up for their newsletter and carry out searches on Google using keywords like; “Louvre”, “Paris” and “affordable hotels”. These repetitive behaviours demonstrate an active interest in travelling and they become categorised as the perfect target audience for an ad from a French travel agency.