Online digital campaigns have seemingly taken over the world of marketing. While they can be very effective if implemented properly, many marketers’ digital campaigns fail to reach their full potential.
The key to launching any successful campaign is making sure you reach the target audience; and this is where many fall short. It’s not enough to market to broad groups anymore. Customers have become numb to the daily bombardment of ads. To penetrate through the noise and effectively reach prospective customers, advertisers have to go beyond traditional marketing methods.
Hypertargeting is the technique that allows marketers to reach prospects using very specific parameters. This boosts conversion rates, while simultaneously minimizing wasted effort and funds.
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Hypertargeting in the Construction Industry
When speaking specifically about construction, how can this be used? Anytime you are able to narrow down the field and focus on those more likely to purchase from you it’s an advantage. Implementing hypertargeting allows companies to be very precise with how they approach digital marketing.
Using EDA data, it’s possible to not only locate current equipment owners, but target owners of a specific type of equipment as well. For instance, a company rolling out a new paver model could utilize and combine several data points to construct the perfect prospect audience for their new product.
Layering information allows them to be much more targeted. Advertising to construction equipment owners isn’t enough. By tightening the parameters it’s possible to target the construction companies who own pavers. Or go further by targeting only those paver owners whose equipment is over a certain age, and therefore more likely to be in the market for a replacement. Even more specifically, particular brand owners can be identified and targeted based on current and previous brand ownership. The precision targeting allows for time, attention, and funding to be allocated to the areas where it will be most effective.
Being able to identify and market to very defined groups, such as particular brand owners, allows marketers to get the most out of their campaigns by zeroing in on those most likely to buy.
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Where Does the Data for Hypertargeting Come From?
When launching a digital campaign it is essential to know who your audience is. Marketers need to have a clear sense of who needs their product and what they will respond to. Forming a custom target audience allows marketers to focus their efforts exactly where they think it will be most beneficial.
They are able to form these audiences using data. Since it is very difficult to form an accurate profile or targeted audience through the use of first party data alone (as the scope is very limited), the lion’s share of the data is most often supplied by a third party. The information used to define the audience is obtained through a few major ways.
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Registrations and Profiles
Many companies now require users to register before accessing their product or website. For the most part the information is typically stuff that people don’t think twice about handing out (name, age, sex, address).
Then there is information gathered using online profiles. This is usually far more detailed than the average registration form. These pieces of information are pulled from various sites that the user has supplied the information to. A typical example would be something like a Facebook profile. Users can be much more detailed here, listing all sorts of information that can be used for targeting (likes, dislikes, favorite brands, companies or people they follow).
Behavioral History
Behavioral history gleans information from a person’s previous online actions. What sites have they visited? What products have they searched for? Where have they made online purchases?
Offline to Online Data
Marketers upload their own offline databases. Information such as phone numbers or email addresses can then be cross checked and matched with profiles online. In addition to their own information, marketers can acquire third party data from sources such as EDA.
Much more in-depth information such as equipment ownership, brand affinity, and job titles can be provided which are in turn matched to emails provided to online profiles such as Facebook or LinkedIn. This data acquisition and layering of information builds a much more accurate target audience.
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Ways to Implement Hypertargeting
Marketers have a few choices on how to go about implementing hypertargeting. With Facebook’s targeting options, those who have previously visited their website can be retargeted based on browser cookies. They are also able to build custom audiences that are designed and grouped based on the marketers’ desired target. Facebook even has something they call “lookalike” audiences. This feature serves ads to those who have similar likes, views, or interests as your custom built audience.
Google is another possible hypertargeting avenue. With AdSearch, marketers are able to use key or anchor words to try and rank higher in search results, as well as bidding on “sponsored” search results. The major advantage here is that your prospective customer is actively searching for something. If you’re able to put your product or brand at the top of the search through bidding or keywords you have great chance of a conversion.
There is also the Display Network approach through Google AdWords. Though prospects would not be actively searching or seeking a solution to a problem here, it does allow companies to more precisely target an audience as opposed to generic category targeting.
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Hypertargeting in a Nutshell
The more specific and targeted you are, the greater your chances of converting a prospect to a customer. Knowing the likes and dislikes of potential customers can help identify the most likely buyers to what you have to offer.
This technique eliminates waste by not squandering time and resources on people who aren’t going to buy the product. This both saves money and maximizes the allotted budget. While it is true that the cost per lead may increase because of the smaller prospect pool, in general cost per sale will drop as a result of the targeted advertising.
Hypertargeting is simply the ability to do something that marketers have always strived to do. Identify the perfect customer and place ads in front of them. The more specific a targeted audience becomes, the higher the probability of turning that prospect into a customer.
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