Recently Mike Watson, our Director of Sales based in Atlanta, had the privilege of moderating a panel at the Brand-Innovators Summit. The content for this event mostly focused on the future of consumer experience and retail, and he was able to engage in thought-provoking conversation with many attendees, including Aflac, Cricket Wireless, McCormick & Co. and Porsche. It’s always fascinating to talk about challenges and opportunities that senior marketers are faced with.
While the insights were plentiful, one consistent theme was echoed by everyone in attendance:
“How do I tap into the latest digital and advertising technology to better understand what my customer is looking for?”
How to Better Understand and Target Your Customer
At its simplest, advertisers are all trying to find people whose actions indicate an interest in their product or service. They want to better understand what their customer is looking for and also how to reach that person in the most efficient and effective way.
Drawing from the lively exchange between panelists, here are a few examples of how they, as advertisers across different verticals, can pay close attention to signals of intent to determine consumer behavior. This data comes from the sites they visit, the keywords they search, the content they read online, and even the physical locations they frequent.
The advertisers that work with Simpli.fi, leverage intent-based data and a blend of targeting tactics to reach their customers at every level of user engagement — from upper-funnel awareness and consideration to lower-funnel conversion and loyalty programs. These examples reflect how Simpli.fi would approach clients with these needs.
Let’s dig into the first example. McCormick & Co, a national spice brand that is well-known for kitchen spices might want to reach a home cook at the important moment when they’re considering integrating new spices into their cooking routine. While some marketers might start by first targeting stay-at-home moms of a specific age, in this case advertising dollars are actually best spent targeting an individual who is actively looking for recipes, reading cooking-relevant content, or even visiting cookware retailers, regardless of their demographic or age.
By targeting in this way, advertisers can engage new customers by showing them ads that resonate with the content they are already consuming (contextual targeting), the searches they perform across the web (search retargeting), and the physical locations they visit (geo-fencing). These tactics ensure that you serve valuable impressions to users actively searching for and consuming relevant information related to your products or service.
Listening to signals of intent is also relevant as you progress down the purchasing funnel. In this next example, let’s zero in on the health insurance vertical. 71% of Americans who are shopping for health insurance seek information online before purchasing. They are reading a lot of content across the web, all of which sends signals to advertisers that they are open to engaging with a company that could solve their need.
Similar to our first example, Aflac would also benefit from leveraging contextual targeting and search retargeting. They could also layer in site retargeting – another tactic that can be used to reach users who have already visited their website in order to engage them on other sites across the web. Site retargeting increases brand exposure and is an effective method of converting site visitors into purchasers.
Moving on, how could a luxury car brand like Porsche leverage signals of intent to reach their target audience during the all-important conversion stage? Not only could they utilize all targeting tactics mentioned previously to bring exposure and awareness to their brand, but they could also attract affluent car buyers who they know are in market for a luxury car by taking advantage of Simpli.fi’s Geo-Fencing with Conversion Zones and new Geo-Lift measurement. In doing so, the dealership(s) could serve ads to potential customers who have recently visited their competitors’ location(s) and measure how their mobile ad campaign drives verified foot traffic to their own dealership(s). You can learn more about how Geo-Fencing with Conversion Zones work in our recent blog post.
For our last example, let’s take a look at how an advertiser could tap into lower-funnel conversions and loyalty efforts. Cricket Wireless may be interested in targeting known customers who have previously been to their brick-and-mortar locations with promotional and loyalty offers in order to secure their business. Additionally, they could continue to deliver great value to customers post-purchase in order to retain their business by utilizing CRM Targeting. CRM Targeting can be used to bolster reward programs or reach loyal customers with special promotional offers to keep advertisers like Cricket Wireless top of mind.
THE SIMPLI.FI DIFFERENCE
In all of the above cases, advertisers can engage customers by using a blend of targeting tactics to reach their customers at every level of user engagement.
With Simpli.fi’s unstructured data network, the ability to execute highly targeted campaigns based on a dynamic audience is possible. The use of unstructured data also allows advertisers to make real-time optimizations to their audience throughout the entire duration of the campaign, providing valuable insights for maximizing the reach and relevancy of their campaign.
Interested in learning more about reaching people based on their behavior? Reach out to us directly at hi@simpli.fi to find out how to apply these proven targeting strategies to positively impact the performance of your localized campaigns.