“Relevance is what holds people’s interest. It’s becoming more important that you leverage data to personalize your ads to {your consumers’} interests and deliver the right message to move {them} down the purchase cycle. If you don’t, somebody else will.”
There are a lot of buzz words in the marketing world, and sometimes it can get a little confusing. In an age where personalized experiences are preferred and programmatic is becoming the norm, we hear a lot about targeting and personalization. These words often get used interchangeably—but they are actually two distinct concepts that work together to give you the best user experience possible and make your marketing smarter than ever. So, what’s the big idea with targeting and personalization? Let’s break it down.
TARGETING refers to who you want to engage.
Coffee lovers, book aficionados, online shoppers, people who don’t like gluten—the list is endless, but basically, it’s the people whose attention you want. This also includes age, gender, and all the demographic good stuff that comprises the usual targeting roundup.
PERSONALIZATION is what you engage them with.
After you’ve figured out who to target, personalization is how you choose to engage your target with creative, ad placement, the experience, etc. Successful personalization comes down to how much you know about your audience—like their shopping behavior, interests, geographic location, and life stage. Why? These little details can reveal a wealth of knowledge to help you build the bigger picture of how to market to them effectively and earn a sale. Now, you don’t need to know every little detail about your prospect’s life—but you need enough to create a compelling ad that the person feels is aimed specifically to them. And it needs to be delivered in the right way at the right time.
“It doesn’t have to be down to the exact Callaway golf club that a consumer shopped for online—to personalize at scale, you need the right mid-level and higher-level buckets…Knowing several points about a consumer, for example that he is male, shops for golf clubs, and lives in Southern California can allow you to triangulate these data points to create a compelling ad.”
If your brand can use targeting and personalization successfully, you’ll be well on your way to growing a loyal customer base.