What is Behavioral Targeting and Why is it Important?

Want to know a secret? A whopping 76 percent of business owners are missing out on using behavioral advertising to reel in their target audience.

There’s more to behavioral targeting than just collecting data. Keep reading for what is behavioral targeting and why is it important?

When explaining behavioral targeting, we’ll keep it simple for you. In a nutshell, behavioral targeting uses special user data to place an ads to the right audience.

Admit it: using the same, old marketing tactics is a hit-or-miss situation. And sometimes, no matter how much time and effort you put into crafting an ad, it may not reach the customers you’re looking for.

That’s because it’s super difficult to make an advertisement that encourages potential consumers to buy a particular product. Why is that? The ad isn’t targeting the proper desires and interests that your client may have.

With so many advances in tracking and data technology, marketing to random consumers is a thing of the past. It gets worse: these older methods of advertising are no longer effective, proving to be a real waste of time more often than not.

For those who make a living advertising online, then you might want to add a little data management to your repertoire. Not only will you find the perfect target audience, but you’ll also be able to boost your conversion rate too. Here’s how behavioral targeting works.

The answer is simple: behavioral targeting works by gathering information about a customer through their shopping and browsing behaviors. As if that’s not enough, this valuable data is used to make ads that relate to a particular user’s interests and habits. Naturally, these ads pop up on the potential customer’s browser automatically as well.

The point is to send marketing campaigns to the behavioral target market that are the most interested in them by collecting things like:

• Web searches
• Purchase histories
• Frequently visited websites
• Specific keyword research
• Researching Competitors

The result is a profile that reveals what consumers buy, avoid, and desire!

Are you asking yourself, what are the perks of behavior data collection? We’ve totally got your back. First, behavioral targeting benefits the advertiser by:

• Increasing consumer engagement
• Boosting ad click-through rates
• Improving conversion rates
• Better ROI on ad spend
• Faster consumer ad remembrance

Let’s talk about how behavioral targeting increases consumer engagement. In case you didn’t know, behavioral tracking gives publishers direct access to clients who show patterns of clicking on certain advertising material. Using something called a “one-click ad,” consumers can be sent to digital stores and learn about the company of their choice in just a few moments.

But here’s the catch. If the user isn’t presented with ads that appeal to them, then they’re way less likely to engage in the first place. The key is to give the customer access to an organization’s site so that they can click on more targeted ads later on down the road. This is why programmatic advertising relies so heavily upon behavioral data!

Speaking of which, behavioral targeting can even boost ad click-through rates as well. Yes, you read that right. By creating a personal advertisement that targets the user’s needs and wants, you’ll have a much higher chance of your target audience navigating to make a purchase on your page.

The best part is that once that have their eyes on the product that they’re looking for, chances are that they’ll want to learn more about the brand that manufactured the item as well.

And then, there’s improving conversion rates. Surprisingly enough, ads that are made to target a specific behavioral market will have a natural appeal to those who see them. Of course, this increases the odds that potential customers will buy something or ask for more information about a product.

If you guessed that these behavioral targeting techniques lead to higher revenue and return clients, then you’d be absolutely right. How can you beat that?

For those who aren’t sure where to start, finding your behavioral target market doesn’t have to be hard. In fact, connecting with consumers via ad targeting is beyond easy once you figure out who you’re trying to reach. Here’s the breakdown.

Essentially, behavioral targeting works by crafting lucrative and customized ad experiences. To do so, it tracks a user’s behavior on the web by collecting tiny data samples that are nicknamed cookies. For those who are unaware, the whole cookie process occurs in four simple steps:

• Collecting cookies
• Creating a personal profile
• Separating groups of consumers
• Sharing custom ads with users

First things first, collecting cookies happens when a user visits a new site or makes an account. Once this is done, a cookie will typically be put onto their device, which is either saved temporarily on a memory drive or stored permanently on a hard drive.

The next step is creating a personal profile of a potential customer. After a user has had several cookies stored or collected on their device, their viewing patterns can give you an inside look at their search and shopping habits. Here comes the fun part: separating groups of consumers from one another.

Using the personal user profile that we mentioned above, organizations can designate consumers into different audience targeting groups. When this process is finished, sites that target consumer behaviors will be in the know of this dislikes, likes, and interests of a particular target audience. Weird, right?

The goal: using data to share custom ads with users. So, rather than being sent randomized advertisements, customers will only see personalized ads and content that is based on previous browser behaviors.

But here’s the kicker: you’re going to need a data management platform to target your behavioral market first!

So, what does data management have to do with behavioral targeting? Let us explain. At this point, we’re all aware that almost every organization out their gathers customer data through their websites, whether it’s intentional or not.

That being said, the only way that data collecting will improve your business is by knowing how to use it to gain the results you’re seeking. For instance, marketers need to know how to use their advertising data to avoid wasting time on marketing material that’s performing poorly.

How do marketers know what to do with consumer data? Think about it this way. By using something called a data management platform, advertisers can view and analyze information to better inform their marketing tactics.

If you’re curious about what the advantages of behavioral targeting are for businesses, we’ve got you covered. When you have the proper data management platform onboard, then gathering the data that you need to increase your advertising skills will be right there waiting for you.

Plus, you’ll be able to draw inspiration from both offline and online sources of data to drive up a potential ad’s success rate, which can include:

• Mobile phone data
• Geographic location data
• Registration and subscription data
• Demographic information data

This is crazy—using cookies that are hooked up to laptops, tablets, and mobile phones, customers are able to track a user’s behavior while they’re on the go as well. By looking at daily activity, navigation, and browser history, organizations are given the 4-1-1 on exactly what a consumer is looking at. On top of that, social media check-ins and clicks give advertiser’s a look at consumer trends too.

Not to mention that a customer’s geographic region data is tracked through their device’s internet protocol address. Gathering registration data and demographic data is a no-brainer!

If you’re someone who’s interested in mobile ad targeting, you might be wondering, what behaviors data management platforms track? We’re glad that you asked. Also known as DMPs, data management platforms focus on the following consumer behaviors:

• Pages that are frequently visited
• Amount of time spent on specific web pages
• Clicked links and ads

For the uninitiated, data management platforms keep track of pages that are frequently visited. Why is that? It’s simple.

These behavior patterns show what customers are truly interested in, potentially revealing why consumers are driven to visit a particular page over and over again. For instance, if a visitor makes a purchase on a certain website, the behavioral data might make a prediction about whether they’ll buy more items in the future. This data is used to influence which ads they’ll be shown further down the road.

In addition, the amount of time spent on specific web pages is tracked by data management platforms to show companies how interested consumers are in their product. If they scan quickly before leaving, then your site may not be engaging enough for them.

Besides this, clicked links and ads are measured to gauge what type of advertising and language stand out to consumers. Talk about useful information!

Dying to know about additional behaviors tracked by data management platforms? We’re here to help. Lastly, a few more customer behaviors that are tracked by data management platforms include the following:

• Individual browser searches
• Website element interactions
• Customer transactions

You may already know this, but data management platforms watch individual browser searches like a hawk to see what users are looking for. For example, if a user clicks on your company’s site and looks for a particular product, then your data management platform will earmark this information. Then, it will send targeted ads again when the user revisits your site.

Additionally, data management platforms measure website element interactions to figure out exactly what a consumer’s shopping goal is. This involves looking at the products that a consumer looked at to see what they’re thinking about buying. Amazingly, this can all be tracked by analyzing which menus, icons, and graphics that a visitor engaged with while they were on your website.

Unsurprisingly, this data can be used by the data management platform to find out what messages and formats have the most appeal to your target audience. Also, customer transactions are taken into account by DMPs to reveal if consumers are actually checking out on a specific website.

The shocking part is that leaving a website without purchasing anything isn’t exactly a bad sign. As a matter of fact, it can show that a customer will more than likely return to purchase the products that they left in their shopping cart. Now, users will be sent ads that will remind them to finish what they started on your website.

And last but not least, data management platforms are extremely helpful for tracking a user’s purchase history as well!

If you’re still feeling clueless about behavioral targeting, you’re really not alone. From the definition of behavioral targeting to the perks of behavioral marketing behavior, our handy guide has everything you need to get started and get started with Go Florida SEO.

For those who are sick of spending money on ads that just aren’t reaching the right audiences, you might want to give behavioral marketing a try. Not only will it help you to increase consumer engagement, but it will also boost ad click-through rates and improve conversion rates.

How so? By tracking pages that are frequently visited, the amount of time spent on specific web pages, and the number of clicked links and ads. Not to mention that measuring individual browser searches, website element interactions, and customer transactions is extremely helpful for companies and marketers too.

Do you need a hand in the digital marketing department? Give us a call to schedule a free consultation!