Smargeting - Smarter Targeting For That Income-Earning Edge
Targeting. It's quite possibly the most powerful factor in any advertising or marketing campaign, and for good reason: it works. But to reap results, you've got to get it right. And that, of course, is easier said than done.
In theory, effective targeting shouldn't be quite such a challenge. After all, the idea is straightforward: find the right product, find the right user, introduce the two. But as most publishers know, getting those clicks, leads or purchases can be tough. It's estimated that just a couple of users in every hundred will even think about going near your ads, which means you're going to have to work extra hard to persuade them.
And that's where smargeting comes in.
Smargeting is targeting with a twist. It's smart, savvy targeting, but that doesn't mean it's difficult (quite the opposite, in fact, which is another reason why it's smart).
To make a start with a smargeting approach, we'll be thinking carefully about our ads from two points of view: the way they look and the way they perform.
There's plenty that's already been written about ways to enhance ad performance, and any legitimate methods that optimize revenue clearly have a place in smargeting.
But I'm about to share a smargeting concept that's not as widely used as it should be.
The received wisdom is that 'blending' ads makes them more successful. In other words, if an ad's colors and looks closely match its environment, users are more likely to click it. The reasoning behind this is so-called 'ad blindness', the idea that if ads stand out too much, most users will simply ignore them.
However, as audiences become far more used to advertising tactics, it seems they're also learning to ignore blended ads, too - despite our attempts to convince them they're part of the content.
So perhaps another approach is needed. And what we're going to focus on is which type of ad our users respond to best.
We'll call this 'psycho-blending'; because the aim, essentially, is to match the look and feel of ads with our visitors' personality rather than simply attempt to conceal them.
And why not? Ad campaigns in the offline world are very carefully created for specific audiences, with as much emphasis placed on the look of the ad as the bare-bones message itself. Why shouldn't online strategies follow suit? At the very least there's a good chance that certain ad formats are more suited to your users' overall personality than others.
Smart testing
The first step is to make sure you know exactly which different ad types are available. There are many affiliate programs, each with their own distinctive looks or functionality. Peel-back ads; text with images; inline text; video. You name it; you're likely to find it. Sign up to a selection of programs you feel might work - or even some you think might not.
You'll now need to test these different types. This, admittedly, is far from an exact science, but using keywords will help balance results. And despite flaws, even simple testing should tell you far more about smargeting users than you already know.
All you need do is alternate your current advertising with the formats you've chosen, then track the results. The implementation is up to you: you might wish to trial new formats on just a few pages, or throughout your site if you can do so easily.
However, you'll want to use the same keyword(s) for each ad type so you can ascertain performance more efficiently. Ensure that they're fairly standard terms so that content is readily available across all formats; make sure, too, that they're keywords you know attract users - after all, we want to test ad types, not the keyword itself.
For example, with a term such as 'digital camera' you should find it simple to set up corresponding ads for a wide variety of formats - product mini-malls, inline text, text-and-picture ads, standard banners.
Leave your pages long enough to get a handle on the stats. Essentially, you're looking at clickthrough rate - page impressions divided by number of clicks - and should be able to track this in your affiliate admin area or own stats software. You'll also want to allow a good number of impressions for each ad type tested; a thousand or so at least, if possible
Did you learn anything from these tests? Was there a noticeable preference amongst your visitors? And more importantly, how did clickthrough rates compare to the format you've been using so far?
If any ad type produces results that are higher than your current one, you've learned something valuable about your audience. Either that overall, they prefer a different ad to the one you've been using; or that changing or mixing formats from time to time provokes renewed curiosity and interest. Either way, you can use such results to push your smargeting further.
The wider context
Most would agree that contextual advertising is a mainstay of smargeting.
In the perfect scenario, you've managed to establish your very own context by promoting a niche that visitors actually come to your pages for.
But since that's an exception rather than a rule, contextual advertising does, in theory, at least target visitors with advertising geared to their interests.
What's more, if you really want to optimize your earning opportunities, you'll carry out contextual research for your online content, too.
Let's say, for example, that you're running a food and wine site and want to write a new article on wine. You happen to know a lot about German whites, but by using a keyword tool to check the term 'white wines', you'll notice that 'California white wine' is currently the highest-paying keyword phrase - much more so than its German equivalent.
Which means you've found an ideal topic, since any contextual ads generated by your content are likely to be the highest payers. And while you're at it, you may as well check out a few other good earners, too. A pretty wise smargeting move, right?
Maybe not. Consider the following scenario.
Your visitor - a regular - hasn't yet turned up at your site. They're intending to stop by, but right now they're viewing a blog. It's also about food and wine because after all, that's their main interest.
There's an ad at the top of the page for Californian white wines, which happens to tie in nicely with the entry they're reading. Elsewhere in the blog, they notice an ad for Belgian chocolates.
They decide to switch to your site, keen to check out some recipes.
They immediately notice an ad on the homepage. It's the one they've just seen for the Californian wine producer. And oddly enough, your feature article is similar to the one they've just read.
No worries - your visitor clicks through to the recipe page and starts scanning the latest content. Then they notice an ad for Belgian chocolate. It's in a slightly different format, but otherwise the same one they glanced at just a few minutes ago. This is almost starting to get a little irritating, and your visitor can't help wondering why they're seeing the same ads over again.
Of course, the answer in this case is because you and your rival publisher were being smart - or so you thought - with optimized keyword content. Realistically, no two sites are likely to choose exactly the same topics, but even if you're not expressly manipulating keywords, this kind of scenario is growing increasingly common.
Users surf from site to site according to their interests. And if they visit one or more sites about the same kind of subject, there's a high chance they'll come across the same ads, too.
After all, that's exactly what contextual advertising is about. And even the largest advertising networks only have a limited amount of ads to share across a rapidly growing number of affiliated sites. All of which means that, sooner or later, visitors with specific interests will encounter advertising on your site they've seen many times before.
So how do we tackle this?
While waiting for the wider use of behavioral targeting (which evades the issue by serving different ads to different users) you're not going to abandon contextual ads altogether, because they do work - just less efficiently as time goes by.
The smargeting answer is to review the idea of context and prise it open. To take another look at what you're offering and see if you can push things a little bit further.
In other words, it's time to start thinking again about your average user profile. What else is likely to make them tick?
In fact, coming up with ideas may be a lot less difficult than you think. Take, for example, our food and drink site. There's a good possibility that visitors are also interested in tableware; products such as dinner services, glasses or cutlery.
Perhaps they like to hold dinner parties? If so they might also be keen on services such as professional flower arrangements for the table. Or specialty cleaning products - those red wine stains can be tricky to remove. And then, of course, there's the whole area of food preparation itself. Kitchen and cookery utensils or even white goods such as fridges, dishwashers.
Get the idea? Not only have you found yourself several potentially valuable niches - segments, almost - within your food and wine sector, you've also discovered a way to vary the monotony of your regular, over-exposed advertising with new and unexpected messages.
It's the smargeting way to fight increasing ad blindness - and again, it could be worth investigating different ad types to showcase such content (a mini-mall could be just the thing for those kitchen products, for instance).
Don't forget to check how well your strategies are working. You might be surprised just how far your smargeting can take you.
Note on AdSense channels
Admittedly, channels can seem a little perplexing, but they're actually very simple to use.
For example, if you're planning to position ads top left in your page, create a channel named 'top left' (any label will do, but you may as well be specific!) and add the new ad unit to it following on-screen instructions.
You'll now be able to check positioning performance by accessing individual stats for your 'top-left' channel in the Advanced Reports section of the AdSense publisher area.
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