How Targeting for Online Display Ads Works
One of the key factors in making display ads effective is targeting - ensuring that the right people see the right ads at the right time. Below, we explain the main targeting methods, how they work, and why some are more advantageous than others.
Geo-Targeting
Geo-targeting allows advertisers to reach audiences based on their physical location, whether by country, region, city, or even specific coordinates. This method is particularly useful for businesses that operate in specific areas or offer location-based services.
For instance, a restaurant chain can show ads only to users in cities where it has locations, ensuring that marketing efforts are focused on potential customers rather than wasted on irrelevant audiences.
How does Geo Targeting work?
One common way geo-targeting works is by using a user's IP address to determine their approximate location. This works since most internet service providers tend to give specific IP adresses only to specific geo location. This data is available in big databases and Advertisers can use this data to ensure their ads are displayed only to users within specific locations, making their campaigns more relevant and efficient.
In addition to geographic location, advertisers are also interested in the socio-demographic data or interests of users to ensure that advertising is more likely to be delivered to users who are interested in the service. There are several ways of achieving this on the market:
Behavioral Targeting
One way to find out more about users is to track their behavior. To do this, tracking providers work together with a network of different websites. Every time a user opens a website from this network, the tracking provider either marks the user's device with a cookie or, if it is already marked, writes it to a database to indicate that this user has also opened this page.
Using this data and a broad network of websites with which the providers work, they can get a good picture of which websites the user visits.
In addition to tracking website history, the data providers uses ads to and ask to take part in a survey. Since some of them participate in the survey, they now have not only the website history of some users, but also a good understanding of the socio-demographic and interest data collected through the survey.
Due to the fact that they only have this survey data for a small portion of users, they now use static approaches to predict what socio-demographics a person has based on website visit history by finding a static twin with a similar website history.
Advertisers can pay tracking providers to use this data to serve ads.
In the past years, particular due to growing concerning’s about data protection and the discussion about Google Chrome, being the most used web browser, that it wants to block cookies from third parties like the tracking providers, lead to the fact that a lot of advertiser stepped away of using this kind data.
First-Party Data Targeting
First-party data targeting uses information collected directly from the websites on which the ad is placed. For example, the websites ask the user to register for specific services and during this process collects information about age or other socio-demographic data by asking the user directly for it.
Advertisers can now negotiate with media owners about the use of this data to target a campaign. Since only a few media channels have this data and the available data varies greatly between the different media channels, it is difficult for an advertiser to use this data for a campaign.
Website-Based Targeting (Contextual Targeting)
One of the most straightforward and effective methods of targeting is website-based targeting, also known as contextual targeting. This approach involves selecting specific websites based on their content and topic relevance to the advertised product or service.
For example, a company selling high-end travel gear may choose to place ads on travel blogs, adventure magazines, or airline websites. Since the users visiting these sites are already interested in travel, the likelihood of engagement is significantly higher.
Re-Targeting or Remarketing
A special form of targeting is Retargeting. Retargeting is a digital advertising strategy that targets users who have previously visited a website but did not complete a desired action, such as making a purchase or signing up. By using cookies advertisers can mark these users on their website and then use this cookie to later find this user agains on other websites on which they book ads. These ads reminding the users of the brand and encouraging them to return and convert. Retargeting helps improve conversion rates by keeping potential customers engaged and reinforcing their interest in a product or service.
To make retargeting successful you need to work together with a partner most of a time a ad network or an platform like AllMediaDesk that has access to a big network of websites with a huge reach, otherwise it will not be possible to find the users again, that did not complete an action at your website again. Also using retargeting requires some changes on your website, since you will need to integrate a piece of code of the partner, you work together with, to run the ads, so that this partner can find the users again in their network of websites. Please note that AllMediaDesk does not offer Remarketing at this point.