The Ultimate Guide to Digital Marketing Targeting for Beginners

Welcome to the ultimate guide on digital marketing targeting. If you're a digital agency looking to elevate your game, you've come to the right place. We’ll break down everything you need to know about digital marketing targeting in a way that’s easy to understand and put into action. 

Let’s get started.

What is Digital Marketing Targeting?

Are you aiming at a clear target or are you shooting in the dark? When it comes to making your mark, digital marketing targeting is your scope, helping you focus on your ideal clients. 

In many ways, it’s a big component of modern marketing agency strategies because when done right, it has the potential to dramatically boost your ROI and campaign effectiveness. This is because when you know exactly who you’re talking to, you know exactly what to say, and can make every precious dollar of your digital marketing budget count.

For instance, a coffee shop in Seattle could use digital marketing targeting to reach local coffee enthusiasts between the ages of 20-45 working in the downtown core, rather than casting a wide net that includes people outside of walking range. Smart, right?

Understanding Your Audience

To target effectively, you need to know your audience inside and out. This starts with thorough audience research. We recommend that you use a combination of the following to gather data: 

• Surveys
• Social media analytics
• Website analytics

Creating detailed buyer personas helps you visualize your ideal customers and better tailor your marketing efforts to their needs. But how do you go about gathering this data accurately? Here’s what you need to know:

Methods for Gathering Audience Data

• Surveys: Directly ask your customers about their needs and preferences. This can provide invaluable qualitative insights. This can be done through a newsletter, promo campaign, or other form of survey distribution strategy.
• Social Media Analytics: Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and X offer in-depth analytics tools to understand who exactly is engaging with your content.
• Website Analytics: You can use tools like Google Analytics to see where your traffic comes from, what pages they visit, and how they interact with your site.

Pro Tip: Tracking audience data across various platforms can be challenging. However, with Vendasta's CRM, generating tailored content for your prospects is incredibly easy—all you need is the business name. Vendasta's Sales CRM software continuously analyzes data and provides insights, enabling you to anticipate prospects' needs before they do.

Creating Buyer Personas

A buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on data and research. 

For example, if you're a digital marketing agency targeting small businesses, one of your personas might be "Sarah, a 35-year-old small business owner who values cost-effective marketing solutions and has limited time for in-depth marketing research."

In this case, Vendasta's Marketing Services could be of interest to Sarah, providing a team of experts to help her small business build brand awareness and gather and analyze audience data for their small business clients in Social Marketing and Website Pro.

Types of Digital Marketing Targeting

1. Demographic Targeting

What it is: Demographic account targeting is based on factors like age, gender, income, education, and occupation.

Example: A high-end fitness club might target ads towards professionals aged 30-50 with a high income and interest in health and wellness.

2. Geographic Targeting

What it is: Geographic targeting based on location, which can range from just a few blocks down the street to across the world.

Example: A restaurant chain could use geofencing to target mobile ads to people within a 5-mile radius of their locations, offering lunch specials to draw in local traffic.

3. Behavioral Targeting

What it is: Sales targeting based on user behavior, such as online activities, purchase history, and search history.

Example: An e-commerce site might target ads for running shoes to users who have previously searched for or purchased fitness equipment. 

4. Psychographic Targeting

What it is: Psychographic targeting is based on lifestyle, values, interests, and personality traits.

Example: A travel agency offering adventure trips could target ads to thrill-seekers who have shown an interest in extreme sports and outdoor activities.

5. Contextual Targeting

What it is: Contextual targeting is about placing ads on websites or alongside content that is relevant to the ad.

Example: Us placing an ad about Vendasta’s platform at the bottom of our blog about inbound marketing automation because our target audience (digital agencies) is also likely interested in learning more about white-label reselling.

6. Retargeting

What it is: Re-engaging visitors who have previously interacted with your website but did not convert.

Example: An online retailer can retarget ads to users who added items to their cart but didn’t complete the purchase, offering a discount to encourage them to return and finalize their purchase. 

Digital Marketing Targeting Strategies

Digital marketing targeting strategies are a must for reaching the right audience with the right message. These strategies involve using data to understand the characteristics and behaviors of target customers.

Let’s take a look at a few tried-and-true digital marketing targeting strategies you can try right now:

1. Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

Keyword Targeting: Identify and bid on keywords relevant to your business to appear in search results.

Ad Scheduling and Device Targeting: Schedule ads to run at times when your target audience is most active and target specific devices to maximize relevance.

Example: A home cleaning service might target keywords like "home cleaning services near me" and schedule ads to run in the early evening when people are likely to be at home and more open to considering cleaning options.

2. Social Media Targeting

Platform-Specific Options: Each social media platform offers unique targeting options based on user demographics, interests, and behaviors, so it is worth checking them out.

Leveraging Vendasta’s Social Marketing Tool: This tool helps craft highly targeted social media campaigns that reach the right audience on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

Example: A B2B software company might use LinkedIn's targeting options to reach decision-makers in specific industries.

3. Email Marketing Targeting

Segmentation Strategies: Divide your email list into segments based on criteria like purchase history, engagement levels, and demographics.

Personalization Techniques: Personalize emails with the recipient’s name, recommendations based on past purchases, and relevant content.

Example: An online bookstore could send personalized reading recommendations to customers based on their past purchases and browsing history.

4. Content Marketing Targeting

Creating Targeted Content: Develop content that addresses the specific needs and interests of different audience segments.

Distribution Strategies: Use platforms and channels that your target audience frequents to distribute your content effectively.

Example: A health and wellness blog might create targeted articles for different demographics, such as “Healthy Eating Tips for Busy Moms” or “Fitness Routines for Seniors.”

Tools and Technologies for Digital Marketing Targeting

Here are several tools that can enhance your targeting efforts:

• Vendasta’s Platform: Offers robust features for audience analysis, campaign management, and performance tracking.
• MatchCraft’s AdVantage Platform: Provides powerful advertising solutions that leverage behavioral data for precise targeting.
• Yesware: Offers advanced email targeting capabilities and analytics to optimize marketing efforts.

Measuring and Optimizing Targeting Efforts

To ensure your targeting is effective, track key performance indicators (KPIs) such as:

• Click-through rates (CTR)
• Conversion rates
• Customer acquisition costs

You can also conduct A/B testing to determine what version works best, allowing you to continuously improve your strategies through data analysis. Vendasta’s Snapshot Report can help agencies monitor and report targeting success for their prospective clients, providing detailed insights into what’s working and what’s not.

Privacy and Ethical Considerations in Digital Marketing Targeting

While targeting is important, it’s even more so to respect privacy and adhere to regulations like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). 

Be transparent about how you collect and use data to build trust with your audience. Balancing personalization with privacy concerns ensures that you can create effective campaigns without compromising user trust. It’s not only good for your reputation, it’s the law.

Case Studies

Dove: Project #ShowUs

(Source, Dove)

In 2019, Dove, a popular beauty and skincare brand, started Project #ShowUs to feature everyday women in their advertising. This was because a study they conducted revealed that 70% of women feel they aren’t represented in typical ads. The goal was to improve representation through a digital marketing campaign.

Project #ShowUs created a collection of diverse stock photos by working with Girlgaze to find female photographers and marketing creatives. This made sure that the people making the content were also represented.

Today, Project #ShowUs is the largest stock photo library created by women, with over 10,000 images available on Getty Images. Getty Images reinvests 10% of the money earned from these photos back into the project to keep it going. The campaign was very successful, earning 100% positive feedback for Dove and achieving its goal of better representation (Adobe).

Here are some key points from the campaign:

• Aim for a bigger mission. Sometimes, your digital marketing campaigns should focus on something bigger than just promoting your marketing and branding.
• Address important issues with smart marketing. Think about the big problems in your industry, like representation, gender stereotypes, or pay gaps, and use your campaigns to tackle them.
• Use diverse images. Avoid using overly edited models and products. Show diverse images to connect with a wider audience and build loyalty.
• Tell stories through pictures. A picture can say a lot. Use multimedia to make your message stronger.

Slack: Word-of-Mouth Marketing

Slack, a well-known instant messaging app for businesses, has always prioritized customer feedback and user experience to create a powerful collaboration platform. With many competitors in the market, Slack chose to focus on word-of-mouth marketing to promote its service.

They launched "The Wall of Love," a digital marketing campaign that highlighted positive comments about Slack. This campaign was centered around an X account (@SlackLoveTweets) that retweeted users' positive experiences with the app. While mainly inactive, at the time of posting, this account has garnered over 2,690 followers and 9,500 community-generated posts.

Although The Wall of Love wasn't Slack's only successful marketing effort, it demonstrated the effectiveness of social proof. This campaign played a big role in helping Slack grow to over 38.8 million daily active users in 2024 (Statista).

Key points from Slack's approach:

• Make sharing easy. Instead of creating a new platform for collecting word-of-mouth content, Slack used X, making it simple for users to share their experiences.
• Leverage customer feedback. Positive tweets served as social proof and provided valuable insights into user pain points and favorite features.
• Deliver on promises. Marketing can't promise what the product can't deliver. Slack's focus on customer experience ensured their service met the expectations set by their marketing.
• Use visuals on social media. Adding multimedia to social media posts attracts more attention. Many tweets on The Wall of Love included images, helping to increase brand recognition and engagement.

Conclusion

Digital marketing targeting is essential for reaching the right audience and achieving your marketing goals. Embrace a data-driven, customer-centric approach to make the most of your targeting strategies. Start implementing these tips today to scale your marketing the smart way.