The Opportunity Cost of Targeting to Death: Part II of IV - Steve Bookbinder-Digital Media Training

Last week we discussed how Grouping is the first of four things we should consider before overtargeting without sufficient data and testing This week we will look at the second consideration How Referring Traffic data may trump overtargeting when considering how best to serve our advertisersReferring traffic amp8211 it is helpful to consider where the user was before they came to the content on which we serve them an ad as this may reveal what they are in the right frame of mind for or quottheir intentionquot to use online marketingspeakTo consider the intention of the user it is helpful to visualize that person running out to catch a pass they are moving and we need to hit them with the ball where they are going to be By the time that user sees our ad on that content what is their intention Where were they before they came to that content What drove them to that content that day that moment Were they looking for entertainment Shopping Information Connecting with friends How did they discover this content Through a link on a search engine Through a recommendation on a social media page Are they already a loyal follower of that content Do we show a different creative if the person comes to that content via a tablet vs a PCWhile we can use our analytics tool when studying our own site39s traffic marketers need comScore for directional guidance on this when looking at the traffic that comes to someone else39s siteamp8230and it39s even less exact when trying to determine the referring agents driving traffic to sites within networks Considering the types of referring traffic site visitors often come by circuitous routes along the way going through Social Media currently 1 referring agent Search for some sites paid traffic drives the most visitors for others clicks on organic links drives the most traffic amp8211 in both cases the users are primarily attracted to the content not the site another publisher site shared media or from that user39s Favorites etc Should we consider the effect of referring less than or more than the selection of demographic target Maybe that user is moving in the direction we the marketer need even if the user is not the exact demographic profile we thought we wanted to target or the content was not exactly what we envisioned And of course does serving ads on mobile devices mean that we should consider altering the demo target by device And if so how do we know for sure before we run the campaign what is the right targetBacking in the right creative to match various intentions seems intuitively easier than guessing which exact target will convert best against a single creative even if the conversion is proportional like following a brand on Twitter Given that why the overreliance on targeting rather than referring Is there a shortage of creatives Can39t we create and test more Maybe the landing page which didn39t convert our target would work against a slightly different target with the right referring criteriaIs this another example of how overtargeting may be costing the advertiser in terms of lost conversions as well as lost learning opportunitiesSo far we have focused on how Grouping and Referring should be considered before tighttargeting requirements are locked in Next time we will look at the secret sauce behind behavioral targeting amp8211 Taxonomy amp8211 and why we need to consider this before insisting on a quottootightquot BT target

Click to Make Your 2025 Contribution to Support the MediaVillage Education Foundation

The Opportunity Cost of Targeting to Death: Part II of IV - Steve Bookbinder-Digital Media Training

Author

Publish date

Channel

Archived in

Steve Bookbinder

The Ad Council, Huntsman Mental Health Foundation and Amazon Announce “The Mind Set” to Support Mental Health - Ad Council InSites

More Videos:

Click to Make Your 2025 Contribution to Support the MediaVillage Education Foundation

The Opportunity Cost of Targeting to Death: Part II of IV - Steve Bookbinder-Digital Media Training

Enjoying This Commentary? There's More to Love

Steve Bookbinder

The Ad Council, Huntsman Mental Health Foundation and Amazon Announce “The Mind Set” to Support Mental Health - Ad Council InSites

The payment was successful

Cookies