Pushing forward with our banner display series, it is time to talk about targeting with content. But before we do, let’s review for a second.
In order to maximize your budget within the realm of online banners, make sure you are reaching prospects and reaching them in the right way. That is a little vague, so let’s breakdown the ways you can keep your banners targeted.
What ways can you target your banners?
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1.[br/]Target by Device
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2.[br/]Target by Location
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3.[br/]Target by Content
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4.[br/]Target by Behavior
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So far we have covered targeting by device and location, now on to content.
Content allows you to be much more specific about the type of prospect you want to target. People’s online patterns clue us into who they are, what they are interested in, and what it takes to get their attention.
1. What are they looking for?
In our Google dominated world, most internet activities begin with a search. These little phrases used to find information tell us a lot about the searcher. Wow, this guy just searched for “class 8 truck tires” and this one is looking for “used skid steers”, that might be of interest to me. By targeting relevant search phrases, your banners can follow these prospects whether they come to your website or not.
2. What websites are they visiting?
You need to get your website set up to tag your visitors with cookies. Cookies are little bits of software that allow you to tag the browser’s of website visitors. Odds are if somebody is coming to your website, they are interested in what you have to offer. Once you tag their browser, they can see your banners on sites like YouTube.com and Weather.com. If your website has no traffic to speak of yet, you can use the cookie databases of other relevant websites.
3. What are they looking at?
Once you get prospects to your website or the website you have chosen to target, your targeting job is not done. Through the use of analytics, you can track what content your visitors are looking at. From this data you can extrapolate what products/services this particular person would be most interested in.
Now that you have figured out which device to target, what location you need leads from, and what these leads are doing online, a targeted audience has been built. You can be sure your banners are being seen by prospects. But with this targeted audience comes a unique data set of behaviors. But we will get to that when discuss targeting by behaviors.
