Future-Proofing

Your Campaigns

with Audiences

Arianne Donoghue

SWEDEN SEARCH SUMMIT

#SwedenSearchSummit

Our industry is going

through tough times

Footnotes

And there’s more to come…

What kind of changes?

Regulation

User attitudes

Changes in the law are coming

#SwedenSearchSummit

Directive

95/46/EC

Directive

2002/58/EC

Data Protection Act 1998

Privacy and Electronic

Communication

Regulation 2003

General Data

Protection

Regulation

E-Privacy

DirectiveE-Privacy

Regulation

EU

PANIC

MORE

What will this mean?

Cookies! These may no

longer be used

to track us

Browser

Fingerprints These can be

used to track us

instead

Your emoji Can also be

used to help

track you

Do Not

Track These browser

requests will

have to be

respected

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Ad Blocking is on the rise

Software 34% of Swedes used an ad blocker in

2018

Hardware Combine a €5 Raspberry Pi with Pi-Hole

for network-wide ad blocking

Browser Most browsers now have a position on

user privacy

We’ve gotten so good at using data

We tackle every problem with our data

hammer

Even when it might not be the right

solution

Photo layoutWhat about the humans behind the data?

Mad Men vs the Social

Network

Applying “old skool” to digital

Footnotes

When do you think this quote was written?

“Advertisements are now so numerous that they are very negligently perused, and it is therefore become necessary to gain attention by magnificence of promises, and by eloquence sometimes sublime and sometimes pathetic”

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Samuel Johnson, 1759

Marketers are not normal people

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How we think

compared to “regular”

people

How we think“regular”

people think, compared to

us

Why We Shouldn’t Trust Our Gut Instinct White Paper

We think differently

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Why We Shouldn’t Trust Our Gut Instinct White Paper

Has our focus been on the wrong things?

We need to go back to

basics

Marketers have been so focused

on the data

We’ve forgotten about the

message

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The message is the important bit!

“Shit that arrives at the speed of light is still shit when it gets there”

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David Abbott

We’ve been given the perfect case study

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In their own words

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“We had an understanding that it was digital advertising –

desktop and mobile – that was driving those sales and as a

consequence we were over-investing in that area,”

“We had a problem that we were focusing on the wrong

metrics, the short-term, because we have fiduciary

responsibility to shareholders.”

“It told a very digitally focused story, that you should

invest in paid search, online display. But when you look at

econometric modelling it tells you something very

different,”

Effectiveness vs efficiency

Audiences are our answer

Humans are tribal

We don’t live in a vacuum

The right message at the wrong time, is still the wrong message

Thanks, Facebook

Audiences

Show of hands

Footnotes

5-step framework for success

5-step framework for success (RBAMO)

Footnotes

1. Research

2. Build

3. Assign

4. Monitor

5. Optimise

What are the benefits?

More relevant, useful ads

Save money

Increase conversion

Find new opportunities

Protect your brand

Do more creative, interesting

work!

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1. Research

The gender make-up of your audience

Their interests

Their locations

Anything else that could be helpful

The age of your audience

This is where we find out…

1

2

3

4

5

We’re going to look at

Microsoft Ads Google Ads Google Analytics

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First, dig into campaigns

Use your existing

campaigns to learn about

the makeup of your

audience.

Do this for:• Age

• Gender

• Device

• Location

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Now we look at Analytics

Don’t get lost in the detail!

All the above, plus:

Interests

Intent

Converters vs non

Repeat vs new

Channel mix

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Start simple

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Interests can help us determine intent

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Overlay with segments to get more complex

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Segments to try

I. Converters & non-converters

II. New & returning customers

III. Paid & organic

IV. Search & other channels

V. Most vs least valuable customers

VI. Device/OS/browser

VII. Create your own segments, e.g. largest age/gender combos

Footnotes

Try to write “personas” to

help bring audiences to life

life as you uncover them

“Women who convert are more

likely to be interested in movies if

they’re between 18-24 but if they’re

between 25-34, they’ll be news &

celebrity junkies. This changes if

they’re on mobile, or coming from

Bing”

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If you’ve got email data…

I. Cleanse, segment and download it

II. Upload it to Google Ads as a Customer List

III. Click into the list for more insights into that

audience

Footnotes

2. Build

Build our rules-based audiences

Create custom combinations

Upload any other data

Utilise any other targeting criteria

Set up our tags

This is where we…

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2

3

4

5

The most important thing - tagging

None of this works without tracking tags

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Key steps

Install your tag (ideally via a

tag manager)

Create your conversions

In your Shared Library, create

your audience

You’ll soon be able to use

Custom Combinations to

target Bing users

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Create audiences in GA & import to Google Ads

If your accounts are linked, you can do some cool stuff!

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Create audiences in GA & import to Google Ads

If your accounts are linked, you can do some cool stuff!

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Remember those email addresses?

Use them again, for targeting!

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Google will also create “Similar Audiences” in Ads

Use these auto-generated lists with caution

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With audiences, we can:

I. Remarket to past visitors

II. Change the experience for a set group of usersI. Keyword bid

II. Ad copy

III. Landing pages

III. Choose to only bid on keywords for certain users

IV. Exclude certain users from seeing ads altogether

Footnotes

3. Assign

Footnotes

You’ve done the hard part!

Assigning an audience is easy.

We’re either:

Associating a list with a campaign

or ad group, or

Leveraging a demographic feature: Age

Gender

Location

Device

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Assign an audience in the Audience tab

Go to the Campaign or Ad Group

you want to associate

Add the list

Choose targeting setting

Choose bid

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Demographics – go to Settings

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Top tips when assigning

I. Set audiences to “Bid Only”, not “Target & Bid”

II. Set all bid adjustments to 0% - we want to watch and see what

happens first

III. When adding audiences or demographics, apply them at the ad

group level for maximum efficacy

Footnotes

4. Monitor

Footnotes

Decision time

Once you’ve got enough data, we

can make decisions on whether:

We have enough data for the

audience to be worthwhile

We want to bid up or down for an

audience/demographic

We want to exclude certain groups

We split things into their own

campaigns

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Audience Segmentation View is a gamechanger

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Use Dimensions to see how demographics are doing

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5. Optimise

Exclusions

Bids

Ad Customizers

Campaign Structure

Targeting Settings

What can we adjust?

1

2

3

4

5

Which targeting option?

Bid Only Shows ads to everyone, but bids up or down

for the selected audience

Target & Bid Only shows bids to the selected audience –

with any selected bid adjustment

Exclude Exclude an audience (or demographic) from a

Campaign or Ad Group

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Should you split campaigns?

Probably not, in most cases.

Bids & ad customizers can handle

most things!

Yes if: You need dedicated budget control

You want separate landing pages

There’s always edge cases!

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Get to grips with Ad Customizers

{Params} on steroids!

• Drop in your choice of text, number, price or date

• Apply to keywords, ad groups, campaigns, locations and audiences

• Customise device, ad schedule, or start and end dates

• Combine with countdowns!

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Product (text) Sale(text)Colors

(number)

Warranty

(number)

Start_price

(price)Type (text)

Sale_ends

(date)

Target

location

Target

keyword

Target

campaign

Target ad

group

Target

audience ID

Contoso 16V Rated #1 among all vacuum brands. 4 2 $104.99 Hand Vacuum 31/12/2019 12:00 United States

Contoso 16V

Get 40% of hand vacuums in our Seattle

stores. 4 2 $74.99 Hand Vacuum 01/01/2019 12:00 Seattle, WA

Contoso Stick 5-in-1 Lightweight powerful vacuum with 5 settings. 8 5 $99.99 Stick Vacuum 20/01/2019 12:00

[light weight

vacuum]

Contoso Total Home The most powerful clean-up for your house. 4 5 $150.00 Upright Vacuum 10/01/2019 12:00 Vacuums Upright

Contoso Total Home Get 25% Off if you order today. 5 5 $112.50 Upright Vacuum 04/01/2019 12:00 Vacuums Upright

https://help.ads.microsoft.com/#apex/3/en/56891/1

Bonus tips

Footnotes

Some favourite, practical audience examples:

I. Exclude existing customers from Brand keywords

II. Target existing customers on Competitor keywords

III. Only show ads to people who’ve been to your site before

IV. Bid more for repeat customers

V. Bid on terms you wouldn’t usually bid on, e.g. “Black Friday” to a

select audience who know you

VI. Upsell to customers

VII. Remarket to customers looking to renew 11 months later

Footnotes

Some favourite, practical audience examples:

VIII. Change the ad copy for users in the funnel

IX. Increase bids for these same users

X. Target Dynamic Search Ads at RLSAs or Similar Users to limit the

scope while trialing

XI. Show users a different message depending on the device they’re

using

XII. Think about where breaking out an audience could be good – to

leverage unique features such as Action Extensions

Footnotes

Take it to the next level

I. Look into Custom Affinity Audiences in Google Ads to let you do

more with that data

II. Test focusing budget on your RLSAs and reinvesting saved budget

to grow demand

III. Create custom segments in GA – turn these into audiences you

can use for bespoke remarketing

IV. Create customer pen profiles

V. Create a “family tree” to help visualize your biggest/best audiences

Footnotes