Age is Just a Number,

Do you have kids? Have you ever tried to get them to give you details about one of their friends? The conversation might go something like this:

This conversation is similar to demographic targeting as a marketing campaign approach.

Demographic targeting looks at limited information (usually age and gender) as a means to determine the best marketing messaging and channels. However, ask any person on the street and they will tell you that they are more than their age group and gender. Their story is much more layered, which means the way to reach them needs to be layered. This is where audience targeting comes in.

Audience targeting is a marketing tactic designed to get the right message to the right person, at the moment that makes the most sense for them. By looking at a user’s past behavior online and offline, their interests and affinities, current life point, habits, geographic location, as well as their demographic info, you can get a truer picture of your consumer. These little nuances help build messaging that will make sense for them as an individual, not as part of a generic grouping.

Audience targeting activities will tell you that Dylan is 13, plays drums in the school band, likes to play Fortnite, has a TikTok account but no other social media accounts, he never looks up anything sports related online but he does do homework research exclusively online, he lives in a medium sized suburb but he has traveled abroad, and his favorite ‘TV’ shows to watch are gaming playthroughs on YouTube.

Audience targeting is marketing due diligence; do this work before you establish your marketing strategy and you build cost efficiencies and message efficacy into your campaign. Your message would be effective for Dylan, not ‘school age male.’