Definition and how targeted advertising works
Targeted advertising and how this type of advertising works have been fully described in this article from the Keyupseo blog
Due to the increase in online advertisements of sellers and advertisers, targeted advertisements should be used to attract people's attention.
Advertisers create ads by studying and remembering what people have seen on the Internet. Considering these conditions, we become more interested in shopping.
By having the right ads, you can increase the site's organic traffic and strengthen the site's SEO. You can also buy organic Google traffic through the Keyupseo system.
By running these types of ads, the seller and the buyer get what they want.
We recommend that you familiarize yourself with targeted advertising; Because it can have a great impact on the growth of your business.
What is targeted advertising?
Targeted advertising is a type of online advertising that focuses on specific characteristics, interests and preferences of consumers. To improve the advertising process, advertisers discover important information about you by tracking your activity on the Internet.
These ads can be implemented according to gender, age, education level, income level and employment. It can also be displayed in another way such as the customer's value, personality, lifestyle and interest.
How does targeted advertising work?
Let us explain how to implement targeted advertising with an example.
Let's say you are looking for a music pack of your favorite singer on Amazon. Amazon creates a file called a cookie on your computer to track your visit.
Later, when you search for this reader, ads will recognize this cookie and serve ads related to your visit to Amazon. Like other albums or mags and boards with pictures of singers.
The good thing about this method is that you see ads that you are interested in; And you are more likely to buy them. However, this system is not perfect.
Even if you only visit a page once, you may see a long period of advertising for that particular product. For example, you may still receive advertisements for maternity clothes some time after giving birth.
Apart from cookies, advertisers also use other methods such as checking the history of the search engine and finding personal information of users in social networks to learn about their tastes.
Description of how to implement targeted advertising in 3 steps
- When someone views a product on a website, their browser sends the information they are looking for to ad networks.
- Then the information is saved through the browser cookie. A cookie is a small piece of code that allows ad networks and websites to share information about what a person has viewed.
- If that person clicks on another website that has the same advertising network, it is possible to see an advertisement about the product of the first site through remarketing. These ads are implemented in the hope of increasing the user's interest to buy and return to the site.
Types of targeted advertising
Different types of targeted advertising are used online, but advertisers use them in other media as well. Examples of targeted ads typically include:
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Social media advertising
Social platforms may place ads next to your pages that change based on your friends' activity as well as your own activity.
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Search engine advertising
Search engines place ads on search result pages based on your browsing history.
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Behavioral advertising
Some websites, such as Amazon, base their ads on shopping habits.
Targeted advertising is a way to serve ads based on consumers' demographics, past purchase history, or behavior.
Different types of these ads are used online, but advertisers in other media also use this method.
Examples of targeted advertising are how the consumer chooses which ad to view. Also, creating ads on websites, social networks, and even billboards, depending on who sees them, are examples of this type of ad. In the following, we will learn more about the types of targeted advertising.
Targeted advertising in social networks
Many social networks, such as Facebook, place advertisements on the side of the page. On Facebook, these ads change based on your friends' activity.
Many Facebook ads have a button that, if clicked, may show the ad on your friends' Facebook pages. This ad will be sent to your friends with a note that you liked the ad.
If a certain number of your friends like this ad, that ad may appear in your main Facebook feed. Facebook calls this type of targeted advertising "interactive advertising".
This social network runs its targeted ads based on your account status. For example, if you change your status from Single to Married, you may see matrimonial ads.
Also, when a video style receives the most video views, it indicates the interest of your target audience. With Increase Instagram views, you will notice people's tastes.
Targeted search engine advertising
Targeted advertising in the search engine or Google Ads is one of the popular advertising methods. This method uses your browser's history to display ads related to your interests.
For example, if you search for a word in a search engine, targeted ads will be displayed according to the search made.
These ads are done with the Google Ads platform. Generally, with different methods such as search campaign, remarketing, etc., you can create a targeted ad in the search engine.
These campaigns can increase the user engagement rate and bring a decent amount of money back to the advertiser.
Behavioral advertising
Some websites serve ads based on your shopping or browsing habits. Several pieces of information may be used to display behavioral ads to the user: such as pages visited on a site or time spent on a web page.
For example, if you search for information about new cars on a search engine or website, or buy new clothes online, you may be shown ads related to the items you searched for on different sites.
The use of cookies in the creation of a targeted ad allows the user's activities to be analyzed and relevant ads to be displayed to him.
Targeted text ads
This type of advertisement is generally implemented by Google. It is targeted because they are displayed according to the text that people have searched for.
In addition, it has been done by other search engines such as Bing and has recorded a good conversion rate.
There are different types of advertising keywords, each of which is displayed according to the advertiser's goal. For example, the word "ticket" conveys a general meaning and you cannot understand the user's intent from this search. If you advertise on this word, you have not created a targeted ad. This way you will lose a lot of money.
In this situation, it is better to limit your text ad to certain words. For example, you can target phrases like "buy ski tickets" - "buy ski tickets online".
Geographical advertising
In geographical advertising, it is meant to create an advertisement based on locations and according to the needs and requests of customers in that area.
Due to global locations, a city, state, or country can often be a specific market for certain products or services at a specific time.
Other targeted advertising
In 2010, IBM developed software that collects information from your phone and credit cards to show you ads based on what you've bought in the past.
Now this work is implemented in all kinds of Google Ads ads and using remarketing campaigns. This is one of the most popular campaigns that you can add to your targeted ad.
Targeted advertising is also used on television. For example, Cablevision began using demographic information in 2011 to show different ads to people watching the same program. This process also works depending on your taste in choosing the TV program.
Do targeted ads invade our privacy?
Due to the fact that our search history and data are used in targeted advertising, they can be considered as an invasion of privacy. However, remember that all information you send to the Internet can be tracked. Such as search engine requests, social media updates or websites you visit.
This traceability has caused this information to be returned to you in the form of a targeted advertisement.
The more advertisers know about you, the more they understand about your buying habits. Age, gender, income, relationship status. Advertisers keep and use whatever they can sell.
For example, each person's Facebook profile contains certain biographical information that advertisers would like to know. For example, a profile is about a young and educated female user of art school who lives in a big city.
Based on this information alone, advertisers can send him countless targeted ads that he might be interested in.
Can targeted ads track us across devices?
Yes, this is happening now. If you're looking for workwear on your laptop, you can also get targeted workwear ads on your smartphone; Even if you have never searched for this phrase on your smartphone.
With the help of collected data, advertisers can now predict your browsing habits and the types of sites you visit by analyzing your location.
How can I stop showing targeted ads?
If you want to stop seeing targeted ads, you need to download a blocking plugin for your web browser. This will get rid of most of these ads.
To prevent advertisers from tracking your information completely, you have a few options:
- Go to your web browser's privacy settings, then delete your cookies and ask websites not to track you.
- Visit an opt-out site like About Ads and ask participating advertising agencies to stop tracking your information. While this won't eliminate targeted ads entirely, it will reduce them significantly.
- Reduce the amount of information you share on social networks. This means you don't let advertisers know more about you than you want.
- Using the private mode of browsers. All web browsers have a private browsing mode that does not record your history or cookies.
You should know that online advertising is not going away anytime soon. Targeted ads prove that ads are adaptable to changing consumer tastes and habits.
The importance of using targeted advertising
Targeted advertising is one of the types of online advertising that has many fans today. In this way, advertisers collect various information about you and display attractive ads based on them.
Collecting user information allows the advertiser to know each user uniquely. In this way, he can show him a special advertisement. This can be done in several ways.
One of the types of methods is the use of cookies. Every time you browse information or search for a term on a website, this information is stored in cookies. And they are collected as a bank of information about you.
Another way to collect information is the behavior of users and their personal information on virtual networks such as Facebook and Instagram.
In this article, we defined targeted advertising and told how it is done. We have explained the types of targeted advertising and given examples of each.
We hope you have gained a good understanding of these smart ads. We will be happy to express your opinions and experiences about this topic.
