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How Behavioral Targeting Can Improve Your Overall Marketing Strategy
Marketing provides solutions to people who need them. Identifying an audience can be difficult. Meanwhile, distributing irrelevant ads results in ignored messages. And 47% of consumers block ads, according to market research firm GlobalWebIndex, because they find them irrelevant.
Behavioral marketing is a way to increase the effectiveness of ad campaigns with hyper-accuracy. By focusing on patterns of consumer behavior, companies can align their marketing strategy with specific consumer interests and needs. This translates to higher quality leads and increased revenue.
Are you looking to incorporate behavioral marketing into your email marketing strategy? Campaign Monitor can help.
Behavioral targeting in marketing
is a way of advertising that allows marketers to present relevant messages to consumers based on their digital behavior. This type of targeting relies on consumer information like search terms, pages viewed, buttons clicked, and other website interactions. By understanding the prospective customer’s online behaviors, marketers can create ads that pertain to that user’s interests.
The objective of this approach is delivering ads to an interested audience. By tracking an audience’s behavior, companies can develop messages that align with an individual’s needs. This increases the likelihood that viewers will click the ad, visit the website, and convert.
When a visitor arrives at a new website, code snippets called “cookies” are placed and stored. Over time, a collection of cookies will reveal behavioral patterns about the user’s online search and shopping habits. After profiling users, businesses can segment them into target groups. Companies can then develop marketing to meet the specific needs of particular groups.
When you’re able to sell to a potential customer based on their internet activity, advertising becomes highly targeted. Not only does this improve sales, but it makes for a more positive consumer experience. Behavioral targeting enables companies to deliver valuable information with better timing. You can use a triggered template to send automatic messages when your subscribers perform a particular action. This marketing method minimizes the chance you’ll display irrelevant ads and boosts ad campaign performance.
Benefits of behavioral targeting
Behavioral targeting is a reliable marketing technique that provides several tangible advantages. Campaigns developed with user behavior data benefit businesses and visitors alike. Here are some advantages of behavioral advertising.
Create a better user experience
By gathering behavioral information about your target audience, you’re able to create a personalized experience for your prospects. When polled, 81% of consumers said they want brands to get to know them and understand when to approach them. Behavioral targeting does this.
Through personalized experiences, people can find the information they’re looking for more efficiently. They’ll have a more positive ad experience. Consumers can also keep up with new products and stay informed about the brands that interest them. It all leads to a better user experience, building trust in your brand and keeping people coming back for future transactions.
More user engagement
Ads that aren’t targeted may be irrelevant. This diminishes users’ willingness to engage with your brand. Behavioral tracking allows marketers to contact an audience who tends to connect with specific materials. This enables you to develop ads that appeal to your market. When your audience values your information, they’re more likely to click through and see your offerings.
Research shows that behaviorally targeted ads converted 6.8% compared with non targeted ads at 2.8%. With successful click-through ads, viewers can be taken to a company’s website and learn more about their products and services. Once visitors arrive, the company can offer valuable content found elsewhere on the site. This increases clicks, engages the user, and boosts sales.
Traditional advertising can cast a wide net without yielding many results. There are thousands of companies vying for the same audience. Without a highly focused campaign, it’s likely your company will be lost in a sea of competitors. With behavioral targeting, you can stand out from the crowd and reach people interested in your products.
Higher conversion rates
The ultimate goal of any website is to gain high conversion rates. All your digital marketing efforts are geared toward converting website visitors into paying customers.
Conversion rates aren’t limited to sales. They include completed contact forms, calls, and requests for information. Conversions are any action that gets you closer to closing a sale.
Behavioral targeting allows you to reach people who are further along in their decision process. It also helps you track the metrics customers leave behind. With that information, you can decide the most effective way to reach them. The more appealing and relevant your ads, the higher the chance your audience will convert.
Increased ROI
All businesses aim for a high return on investment (ROI). When ROI is low, you’re likely spending more money than you’re bringing in. Behavioral targeting impacts your ROI because the more you engage your audience, the more their clicks convert to sales. This equates to profit.
Additionally, investing money on ads that are reaching the wrong people is a waste of resources. With highly targeted campaigns you can create through behavioral targeting, you’re able to reach the right people the first time.
5 ways to use behavioral targeting in marketing
Behavioral targeting enables you to develop relevant ads and reach a specific audience. There are several ways behavioral targeting can improve your marketing strategy, and these five tactics show real-world examples of how to incorporate behavioral targeting in your next email campaign.
1. Email retargeting increases sales.
Shopping cart abandonment is a common issue for online retailers. In fact, a whopping 70% of online visitors will abandoned their shopping cart before completing a sale.
Email retargeting allows you to follow up with those people. You can encourage them to revisit your site and buy the item, and you might even offer an incentive to entice them further.
When visitors leave items in a shopping cart, fashion design house Kate Spade New York sends this email to subscribers:
Source: Campaign Monitor
The yellow header box catches readers’ attention. An image of the product remaining in the cart reminds the shopper what they were interested in, encouraging them to rethink the purchase.
2. Improve customer experiences with targeted marketing.
As discussed before, personalized emails yield better results. Behavioral targeting allows you to send messages your audience wants to receive. Swiss company On targets its audience based on location, product use, purchase history, and content preferences.
Source: Campaign Monitor
Once a transaction occurs, On gets more information about their users. They use details like running distance and runner type to send customers timely messages. These emails offer targeted discounts and friendly reminders about when readers should make future purchases. On also segments users based on billing country. They use this information to write messages in subscribers’ native language.
3. Boost revenue with product suggestions.
By personalizing ad campaigns, you can focus on shoppers individually. This allows you to send product recommendations that drive sales. JD Sports sent customized product suggestions in an attempt to generate more revenue, basing recommendations on previous user preferences. These emails earned their company a 10% boost in conversion rates. They also saw an increase in revenue and ROI as a direct result of personalized product recommendations.
Source: Campaign Monitor
4. Create upsell opportunities.
In addition to product suggestions, companies can leverage behavioral marketing to create upsell opportunities. Knowing what drives your audience to interact with your brand is extremely useful. For instance, Spotify tracks the music their users enjoy and the frequency at which people listen, allowing them to create ad campaigns to sell event tickets and drive traffic to their mobile app.
Source: Spotify
5. Provide customized offers.
Use behavioral marketing to create special offers for your audience. By understanding their purchase history and interests, you can develop targeted discounts that offer specific value. This builds customer loyalty and increases sales. Fab realized subscribers were exploring a particular product on their site. They used this knowledge to create a special discount, sending the offer to those people who then received a personalized experience.
Source: Fab
Wrap up
Behavioral targeting is an effective way to enhance your marketing strategy. Through a simple, four-step process, you can learn more about your audience. This knowledge helps you develop a highly targeted campaign that provides the following benefits:
- Create a better user experience.
- Encourage more user engagement.
- Yield higher conversion rates.
- Increase your ROI.
Behavioral marketing can be used for email retargeting to counteract shopping cart abandonment. It can help create an improved customer experience. Product suggestions help boost revenue. It provides upsell opportunities and enables you to send customized discounts to encourage customer loyalty. A marketing campaign that uses behavioral targeting is sure to generate more quality leads and drive sales for your business.
For more information about how to incorporate behavioral targeting into your email marketing campaign, contact our sales team.
