With all the targeting options, why not use several at once?
Won’t this guarantee a wildly successful campaign?
If only it were so easy..
Piling a variety of targeting schemes on top of each other is known as extra-targeting, and it can severely hinder your campaign’s performance. Every layer of targeting you add reduces the overall size of your audience. Add too much targeting and you’re left with an audience that’s simply too small to deliver the results you want.
Let’s look at an example
Say you have a new product you want to market to a group of 1 million people. First, you decide to target the family planners in the group, reducing your target audience to 500K. Next, you geo-target to the Midwest, and your target shrinks to 100K. Finally, you aim your ads at 25-34 year-olds in the group, and end up with a final target audience of roughly 50K individuals.
Imagine your campaign’s goal was to drive a modest 2,500 clicks. You’d need a 5% CTR to generate them – more than 50X what the average banner yields – which puts unrealistic pressure on your ads. You’ve also eliminated any users who might fall outside your perceived target, but might still be interested in your product.
And finally, you’ve made it almost impossible to adjust your campaign based on the data it produces – data which may well be different than that on which you based the campaign to begin with.
How to make the most of targeting
Three simple steps can help you avoid the false promise of extra-targeting.
- Use your resources. No one knows your niche better than yourself. If you already work with this niche, use all the resources available to you.
- Start with a broad target. Casting a wider net early allows you to adjust your targeting as you go. You’ll be able to react to real market conditions, rather than relying solely on the data you had before you launched the campaign.
- Let the programmatic work for you. Retargeting Base have optimization technology that will automatically improve your targeting as the campaign generates data. Just by allowing it to do what it’s designed to do, you’ll see better results – and quicker, too.