How should you set up the targeting of your online advertising campaigns? Should it be broad, or very specific? The answer actually depends on what type of advertising campaign you are running.
A lot of the time, manufacturing companies think that PPC ads and social media ads are the same, but they could not be more different! For this reason, the targeting needs to be different too. Let’s take a closer look at each.
1. Targeting for PPC ads
One of the first mistakes manufacturing brands make with their PPC campaigns is to target very specific keywords. If you are entering a new market, and you are just targeting your brand name without people actually knowing who you are, you are not going to see a lot of conversions simply because people will not be searching for you. If your brand is not famous worldwide, it is time to step back and accept that you are not quite a celebrity yet, i.e. that you need to go a bit broader.
When targeting broad keywords, make sure that your keywords focus on what your products do, the industry you are in, and maybe even on your target audience. What are people actually searching for when they think: “I need help with (something that your product does)”?
2. Targeting for social media ads
Social media targeting works very differently from PPC targeting. Instead of keywords, you are targeting people, i.e. your customer personas. Keyword targeting on social media does exist on Twitter, but here is an insider’s tip: it does not work very well. So, even on Twitter, it is better to target personas.
To create your ideal persona, you need details such as job titles, industry, job function, company size, interests, etc. Most of the social media platforms have these options when it comes to targeting – you just need to tick them. The average number of people you should have in your target audience on social media is about 60,000 people.
I hope this blog post has given you a useful introduction to advertising targeting in the manufacturing sector. For more information, read my free, full-length guide here. The guide covers the following topics in greater detail:
- best practice for targeting for PPC ads
- best practice for targeting for social media ads
Daiana Damacus
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