Behavioural Targeting: The Top Advertising Technique That Makes It Seem Like Your Phone is Listening to You

We’ve all been there - it seems you’ve scarcely thought of something and then an advertisement for something similar appears on your Facebook feed or as a cookie on a website you’re browsing. As exciting (or scary!) as your phone gaining a semblance of sentience may be, the real reason for this is an extremely effective marketing technique: behavioural targeting. 


A popular technique with marketers to improve campaign effectiveness and website performance, behavioural targeting is used within targeted ads to target a specific audience based on their web activity, online behaviour and browsing patterns. 

The idea behind this is simple: if you want to maximise the effectiveness of your paid ads, you need to make sure they are seen by the right people. Whilst using demographics and psychographics such as location, age and interests can be handy, if you really want to be seen by the most qualified leads for your ad, you need to know what they actually engage with online. That is why behavioural targeting can produce much more successful results. 

So, how does behavioural targeting work in practice? 

Behavioural targeting will use criteria such as browsing history, search history, visited websites and past purchases to ensure those engaging with similar content to yours are the ones who see your ad. For example, if I searched for an SEO course online, I may see an ad on Facebook or Google results soon after for a Content Strategy course or more SEO courses. In this way, behavioural targeted ads maximise the chance of engagement and campaign success by showing ads to consumers who find the content relevant; immediately relevant. 


How do I do it?


Firstly, have a comprehensive content strategy. Without a cohesive and informed content strategy, you could waste valuable money from your ad budget on targeting the wrong people, or linking them to out-of-date, irrelevant or weak content. 


Next comes running the ad. Usually, to run these ads you can use many of the most common ad hosts that you may already be using; Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google. These all offer targeted advertising options, so you can use demographics and psychographics like age, interests, likes and location to structure audience segments.


The software will then get to work, selecting browsers to show your content based on your established preferences. Essentially, it will ensure the right people are shown your advertisement. 



In conclusion…


Behavioural targeting is a no-fuss and stunningly sensible way to augment your ad strategy and maximise your ROI. It can improve retargeting, consumer experience and sales, and revolutionise your future ads by allowing you to tweak content based on analytics and audience browsing behaviour. 


If it all seems a bit complicated, that’s OK - we can do all the hard work for you!



At Digity, we have comprehensive experience creating impactful advertising campaigns. Get in touch with us today by booking a call and we will ensure your ad budget is invested where it should be. 


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This blog post was written by:

Caitlin Davis • August 17, 2020

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