In a World of Customer Experiences
From selling products and services, the market has moved on to selling experiences. Products have begun to take value from associated experiences and selling strategies have to position products along this line of customer experiences.
Affinity Audiences
Google search is now ready to take you into the world of customer experiences by giving you access to audience segments with specific lifestyles, interests or affinities.
Let us say you would like to sell shoes and outdoor gear which are eco-friendly. Based on a list that groups audiences into what is called an affinity audience, you have a chance to land right next to an audience passionate about outdoor activities or conscious about environment or both. You have the opportunity to catch these audiences in the middle of their favorite hobby and then offer them interesting products that will make their experience worthwhile. This way you tie the product to an unfolding story.
Affinity audiences are available to advertisers in Search, Shopping campaigns, Display, Gmail, Video 360.
In-market audiences
While it is interesting to land in the middle of audience segments, it doesn’t pay to bore people who don’t want to buy stuff at this point in time. Some audiences can be touché and might appreciate it if you leave them alone. Here is what Google offers its advertisers, especially those who want to target audiences lower in the funnel and ready to make a purchase. It is called in-market audiences and these are a group of people who are actively researching products and are ready to buy. They are in the market for the products.
Seasonal Event Segments: Taking this further, Google also has a holiday provision called Seasonal event segments for in-market audiences. During holiday seasons when people are actively looking for something to buy, it is important to focus on them and reach out at the right time with offers. Google’s seasonal event segments for Search and YouTube deliver in-market audiences in the market during Black Friday and Christmas. Of course, it makes sense not to target every one of those Christmas buyers, so overlaying this segment with another product-specific targeting will bring great results.
Google has over 30 retail categories to its in-market segments and adding more. Black Friday and Christmas are event segments for this season. There might be more to come. Both affinity audiences and in-market audiences harvest generic search and browsing signals people send about their intent, helping advertisers capture these and use them for more compact targeting. This not only helps sales but also builds great brands.