Audience targeting has become a whole lot easier, thanks to the recent introduction of In-Market Audiences.

This new tool means that businesses need no longer rely on simply targeting a keyword in Google AdWords, they can now refine specific elements of these campaigns to target a particular audience.

Google announced plans to roll out this feature last year, but it is only this month that both Google and Bing have made In-Marketing audiences available to advertisers. The feature allows advertisers to target audiences that are more likely to buy your product or service, based on their past search and browsing behaviours.

This new feature is particularly useful in so much as it allows advertisers to focus their campaigns on users closer to making a purchase, rather than users simply researching similar products and services with little intention of actually converting.

While at first glance, two Google searches for the term ‘Barbados hotels’ might seem to have the same intention, the search engine can distinguish between the user that is simply researching the holiday, and those who have already purchased flights, and are looking to book a hotel room in the near future, based on browsing activity. This insight instantly gives you an advantage over your competitors, as you are able to target those closest to the point of making a purchase.

What makes In-Market audiences even more powerful is that a lot of your audience may not even have heard of your brand before, making them the perfect people to advertise to.

In fact, early beta tests revealed that In-Market audience targeted ads achieved a 162% higher click through rate and more than twice the conversion rates of general keyword targeted ads. The tests also revealed that advertisers could refine the targeting of their search campaigns as well as reducing their CPA by half on average without spending any more money.

The great thing is that this feature’s benefits are not limited to one industry, but rather has the potential to improve sales for businesses across most industries, from finance to fashion, and from education to real estate, B2C and B2B alike.

Of course, the In-Market audience feature will work differently for different businesses, as each will have a different ideal target audience. For this reason, it is important that you conduct tests with this new targeting feature to learn which audiences yield the best results. You may even find some unexpected results, learning that you appeal to a group you never imagined you would. Testing will also save you from wasting money bidding on audiences that click onto your site but whose clicks do not convert into sales.

Possibly the most interesting aspect of this new ad targeting tool is its recognition that the future of successful advertising does not lie in keywords, but rather in people.

If you are looking for guidance on how to improve the reach of your businesses’ search engine ad campaigns, don’t hesitate to contact Clark St. James by calling 01603 343477 or emailing info@clarkstjames.com today.