PPC Demographic Targeting Helps Get the Right Customers to Your Site

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Janet Mobley

September 12, 2019

Demographic targeting is a feature that all home improvement and remodeling contractors should be taking advantage of. If you’re not already, it’s likely that your paid ads are being served to people who, put simply, won’t find them very useful. Meaning that they won’t become a lead and you won’t make a sale.

Demographic targeting allows marketers to target customers within a specific demographic group. This includes gender, age, parental status, and household income (for the time being, at least). The following screenshot shows how easy it is to pick and choose between the four categories.

PPC Demographic Targeting Settings

Why is Demographic Targeting important for contractors?

Well, let’s consider you’re a bathroom contractor who’s also a Certified Aging-in-Place Specialist. What’s the likelihood that someone under the age of 55 (let alone teenagers or those in their 20s and 30s) would click on your ad and fill out a form?

Probably not too likely.

If you’re a kitchen remodeling contractor who specializes in custom, luxurious, all the bells-and-whistles kitchens, does it make sense to show ads to people with a household income in the lower 50%? Not really.

Similarly to how your service teams use tools to complete a project, demographic targeting is a marketing tool that can be used to help get the job done. That is, bring in more leads.

How does Google have this information?

You could make the argument that Google knows everything, but that’s beside the point. Google’s demographic data is collected from users based on a number of things, including their settings, search patterns, and activity associated with their Google accounts. While Google might not actually know the exact household income of a user, they’re able to accurately predict it. This gives marketers the opportunity to show a contractor’s paid ads to a better, more relevant audience.

Tips and Tricks for Demographic Targeting

PPC advertising can be tricky, especially when you’re already focused on running your company, working with clients, and meeting project deadlines. Fortunately, we have a few tips and tricks for maximizing your paid advertising efforts.

Excluding Demographic Groups

Just like how you can target who sees your ads, you can also choose to exclude people who aren’t likely to convert. Using our examples above, each contractor could (and should) immediately exclude people under the age of 18. This is an obvious example since a teenager could never be a qualified lead, but you can really dive down into the specifics of who you include and exclude.

Adjusting Your Bids

Demographic targeting doesn’t have to be an “all or nothing” type of game. In fact, you can adjust your bids so certain demographic groups will have a higher chance of being shown your ads, while other groups will still see them too. A contractor may find that females between the ages of 45 and 54 are their best customers, so they want to show their ads to people who fit that criterion. Males ages 55 to 64, on the other hand, are still a strong bet to become leads, so it doesn’t make sense to not show them ads either.

All Ages

On most platforms, all ages are usually selected by default, so this is something that should be adjusted immediately. Showing an ad to 17 year old probably isn’t going to end up with them becoming a qualified lead.

Need a little help with Paid Advertising? We can help.

There’s a lot that goes into creating and running successful paid advertising campaigns. If you’re not careful, you could end up spending a lot of money with nothing to really show for it.

Fortunately for you, this is what we’re good at. If you have any questions about how you can improve your PPC advertising, social media, SEO, or email marketing, schedule a free 30-minute consultation with us!

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