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At its core, what is technology for? What does it help us do?

Connect, of course!

Despite distance and the pandemic, technology allowed people to connect with each other. Coming together helps us to thrive as individuals, communities, and businesses.

Connecting with audiences is important for us all. Technology helps businesses connect to audiences to speak with and serve them better. More importantly, it helps them understand behavior, which, in turn, tells businesses all about people’s needs and how to meet them.

Audience Targeting with Effective Google Ads Management

Google continues to optimize its audience algorithm to help advertisers show relevant ads to the right audience. Google introduced granular demographics to their audiences filters, which include: Education, Marital Status, Homeowner Status, or Parental Status.

Since Google has done a lot for B2C audiences, if you serve B2B clients, you know it’s challenging to craft strategies to target those audiences. LinkedIn or Microsoft Ads offer an advantage over other platforms as they provide relevant audience filters. You can target segments based on Industry, Job Function, or Company Size.

In early 2019, Google business ads could start using a new detailed demographic targeting option. At first, it was only available in Beta version for certain advertisers. It’s now available to all advertisers.

The Specifics of Demographic Targeting

Let’s get better acquainted with targeting filters. Below, we review the options available in Google Ads:

Select Company Size to target:

• Small Employers: People employed by employers with less than 250 employees.
• Large Employers: People employed by employers with 250 to 10,000 employees.
• Very Large Employers: People employed by employers with more than 10,000 employees.

Select your Industry of choice to target people working in the following industries:

• Construction Industry
• Education Sector
• Financial Industry
• Healthcare Industry
• Hospitality Industry
• Manufacturing Industry
• Real Estate Industry
• Technology Industry

Things to Know

1. The Employment targeting option is only available for the Search Network. As of right now, you won’t be able to run Display Campaigns targeting these demographics.
2. Within the Search Network, you have the option to add demographic filters and bid for them. You can also target them exclusively (Observation vs Targeting).
3. Depending on your client goals, you can exclude these filters from your PPC marketing campaigns

How Do You Know Which Demographics to Target?

PPC strategists approach most B2B clients with a buyer persona in mind. They understand their ideal buyer. They’ve defined this based on their current customer base, research, or company goals.

Naturally, different services or products would target different audiences. Effective Google Ads management is essential to create a well-structured campaign that uses these different settings. It will be easier to add and adjust the most appropriate demographic for each.

For instance, let’s suppose the next client to knock on your door sells software. They have two main products. One version serves enterprises, and the second is for small business owners.

We encourage our clients to write messages that speak to each audience. Begin an individual conversation by creating a separate campaign for each. Then add a “Small Employers” audience to one and a “Large” and “Very Large Employers” to the other. Ta-da!!

If you don’t know who to target, you can add them in Observation mode. This feature will help you understand if the demographics you have in mind will generate leads. It will provide the insight to make adjustments to your strategy!

Let’s go deeper into this example. One of my clients provides businesses with security services. Their structure prioritizes commercial leads over residential ones. Yet, as we created campaigns and audiences to reflect this, something surprising happened. We started acquiring more leads from the “Small Employer” demographic.

The “Small Employer” audience is engaging with our ads! It’s bringing in the highest conversion rate, making sense for the type of client they receive.

So, based on this information, what do we do now? Do we exclude “Large and Very Large Employers?”

No, not at all.

There’s no reason to write off this audience yet. Your next move will depend on your client’s budget. In this particular case, the client is okay to invest in Google business ads for those audiences. They understand the business potential that comes with closing more significant deals. Instead of excluding those markets, we revise ad copy to resonate with this audience.

Once you’ve gotten comfortable with targeting, the fun begins. Now, you can get creative with reaching your demographic. You can target these audiences much like you would with an RLSA Campaign. Instead of connecting with previous visitors, prioritize an industry or company size.

Google Updates to Demographic Targeting

To add on to the excitement, Google has announced a new detailed demographic. Other platforms had led with this, and here at White Shark Media, we are experimenting with it as it has shown great results so far.

Now, you can create audience bundles to target your ideal customer. This will allow you to leverage “Employment” within in-market and affinity audiences.

Spoiler Alert:

But wait, there’s more! Google Ads is testing an Audience View that combines Audience and Demographics tabs.

Google is constantly updating its interface to ease access to data. You won’t always be fond of these changes, but you get used to them.

Typically, this is where you would find the two tabs mentioned above. The new view only shows the “Audience” tab:

This is the new look:

To find the reports you’re used to seeing, click on Show Table and then on Detailed Report:

Conclusion

There you go! That’s your introduction to using Google’s features to reach your audience through PPC marketing. There’s plenty more you can learn to connect with people in need of your products and services.

Subscribe to our blog to understand how they can help you today. As platforms evolve features, you’ll know how to use them to get your products in the hands of your customers!