Digital Advertising and the Power of Personalisation

We live in a world of digital noise. Users have developed a partial immunity to this constant bombardment of messaging, all begging for attention. What's the solution?

We live in a world of digital noise.  Ads in newspapers and magazines, billboards, radio and on TV are, in many ways, irritations of a previous generation. Now we have Google and social media feeds all pleading for attention, and each of those channels heavily saturated with content. Users have developed a partial immunity to this constant bombardment of messaging, all begging for attention. The solution? Personalisation.

 

Personalised content is an investment for your business. Understanding your target markets well enough to provide interesting, personalised content requires thorough research and data analysis, but if you consistently provide content your target audience relates to, you will build customer trust and loyalty. But in what ways this can be applied to Digital Advertising?

 

As one of the best Digital Advertising platforms, Google presents an opportunity for you to reach out to your ideal audience, while they are searching on Google and browsing the web. Google has a number of features available in making this possible, for example, with Affinity Audiences which are described as 'TV-like audiences'. Google groups users into distinctive 'Affinity' categories, such as 'Frequently Dines Out' and 'Travel Buffs', based on data that is collected daily, websites people visit, videos they watch, apps they use and where they are located. This provides a lucrative opportunity for businesses to reach out to personalised audiences.

 

In addition to creating audiences for you, Google also allows you to personalise your own advertising by creating your own, hand-picked audience. Known as Custom Intent targeting, you can reach out to users who have been actively reaching a product or service in the last 30 days, indicating that they are ready to buy in the near future, presenting you with the perfect opportunity to showcase your product, your USPs and why they should buy from you.

 

On YouTube we can even reach users through 'Life Event' targeting, allowing us to display dedicated ads to users who are 'getting married', 'moving house' or 'graduating from college'. This presents huge opportunities for a range of industries. For example, estate agents, bathroom fitters, interiors retailers and removal companies should consider the 'moving house' life event and factor it into their YouTube strategy.

 

However, Google advertising doesn't just take into account what happens online. There are capabilities to use both off-line and online data in order to reach and re-engage with customers across Search, Display, YouTube and even Facebook. Similarly, Facebook allows us to create custom audiences using website behavioural data as well as offline data such as email lists and displaying personalised ads, for example to 'all website visitors'.

 

Personalisation might just be the one of the most important factors for marketers this year and, whilst it is evident that data-driven personalisation can dramatically improve ROI, it is also imperative to use a soft, smart approach and to offer genuine value to your customers.