If you have taken your business marketing online through search engine marketing (SEM), you probably use Google AdWords as part of your marketing mix. Google has for a long time been the leader in SEM and pay per click advertising, making it easy for small or large businesses to advertise to specific demographics and pay only when their ad is clicked.
However, while Google has made online advertising accessible to the small business, it still has some drawbacks. Small businesses often get outbid for specific popular keywords, and PPC ads may not reach a specific demographic regardless of the keyword.
Say, for instance, that you wanted to target your PPC ad to Google users who are female aged 18-35. However, your keyword may show up for both male and female viewers. You waste precious PPC funds whenever you get the wrong demographic clicking on your ad – until now!
Demographic PPC Redefined
Google has recently announced a new feature for their AdWords advertising program called Demographic Bidding that will soon be available for their advertising customers. This allows you to target your ads to more specific audiences through placement-targeted campaigns.
How is Google able to do this? They are working up deals and relationships with participating publishers and website owners who do collect demographic data. Those publishers lend the demographic data to Google, who in turn are able to target specific ads to web surfers.
Benefits for Your Website
Your website will be able to benefit in a couple of ways. First, you can modify a keyword bid to a specific demographic segment. Thus, regardless if a large corporation has a bid for a specific keyword, you may still get your ad shown to your 18-35 female demographic.
On the reverse angle, you can eliminate groups that you do not want to target. For instance, if your main target is women aged 18-35, you can eliminate all men and women of other age groups.
This type of specific demographic targeting is an important phase for helping small businesses refine their ability to succeed with SEM.
