The Online Advertising Playbook: Proven Strategies and Tested Tactics from The Advertising Research Foundation

Winning Plays

• A primary benefit of online advertising is the ability to locate precise groups of consumers who are current customers or attractive prospects for your brand. Often successful targeting strategies are those that combine several classic methods of selecting a profitable audience. It might be geographic markets combined with purchase patterns for a regional retailer; or it could be a demographic segment such as male office workers and the lunchtime daypart for a fast-food chain.

• Targeting strategies must support your marketing objective. We’ve seen various targeting approaches work toward achieving branding goals, prompting direct response actions, and stimulating offline sales. These targeting approaches tied to key objectives included customer acquisition (Hollow Man), new product introduction (KFC Popcorn Chicken), increasing favorability and purchase intention (Budweiser), and customer retention (Pepperidge Farm Milano).

• Each targeting approach provides marketers with different consumer lenses. Demographic targeting defines customers in terms of personal characteristics (their age, gender, and income) and therefore is best for broad usage categories. Contextual targeting looks for shoppers with interest in a category or subject matter related to your brand. Behavioral targeting describes online usage patterns of potential buyers. Daypart targeting is life- and work-style oriented. Geographic targeting overlays customer location data onto products and services categories ...