They want revenge because he defeated a Democratic socialist.
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Going after the “low-hanging fruit” is common advice in the SEO world. Ranking for those terms will help you rank for bigger terms down the line, at least that’s the standard belief.
Do you think that’s true?
There might be some truth to it, but there are many reasons to target low search volume keywords whether your site is brand-new or well-seasoned.
In this guide, I’ll cover why low search volume keywords are crucial to SEO and show you how to find them.
There are many scenarios where you would want to target low search volume keywords. Let’s take a look at six of my most prominent reasons.
User intent refers to the reason why someone is searching a specific phrase into Google. For example, when someone searches for the “best tennis shoes” versus “tennis shoes,” each of these keywords has a different intent.
Someone who searches for the best tennis shoes is likely looking for reviews of tennis shoes. When we put that into Google, the results prove to be true.
The majority of results Google provides are reviews of the best tennis shoes because that’s what people want. This tells us most people who search this phrase end up clicking reviews.
If we change the search to “tennis shoes” the results are dramatically different. Now we’re not receiving results for reviews of shoes, but we’re receiving results of places to buy shoes and different brands instead.
What does this mean?
It means the keyword “best tennis shoes” has an informational-based search intent. This could mean the person is interested in buying shoes but hasn’t entirely decided on a brand or a location to buy them.
They might want to read reviews, surf the web, and shop around a little before making a final decision.
When someone searches “tennis shoes,” it’s clear they’re ready to buy and they know what they want. This is considered transactional intent — meaning they want to make a purchase.
If we’re writing a review on the best tennis grips and we’re trying to get people who are researching rather than buying, we may want to target the following keywords.
The keyword “best tennis grips for sweaty hands” is a very specific keyword. Even though it only averages 140 searches per month, it could still be a worthwhile long-tail keyword because it’s highly targeted and the search intent is spot on.
Search difficulty refers to how difficult it will be for you to rank for a specific keyword. One of the main reasons people target low keywords is because it’s easy for them to rank quickly without much work.
If you refer back to the previous image, you’ll see “best tennis grips” has a search volume of 320 with a difficulty of 41. This means the keyword might be challenging to rank, and would require more backlinks and higher authority.
The keyword below it, “best tennis grips for sweaty hands” will be much easier to rank for because it only has a search difficulty of 18. As you can see, it has a lower search volume, though.
One of the basic principles of SEO is to find as many low competition keywords as possible and include them in your content as naturally as you can. By doing this, you might spread yourself wide over many different keywords, but they’re all low competition so you’ll be able to rank quickly, get traffic on your site, and increase your domain authority to begin to target more competitive keywords.
Take a look at the list of keywords above. These all have low search volume. If you look at the one highlighted with a rectangle around it, you’ll see it contains nine words, which makes it a “long-tail keyword.” Long-tail keywords are phrases that contain more than four words and oftentimes, they contain a high search volume keyword in the middle.
That’s the case with this example.
While “what is the best tennis racket for intermediate players” may only get 20 searches per month, the keyword “best tennis rackets” gets 8,100 searches per month. As a result, you may want to target these long-tail keywords and position an entire piece of content around them with the intent of eventually getting the high-volume keyword.
When you’re starting out with a newer site or trying to grow an existing one, you’ll target these types of keywords that contain the high search volume keyword because they offer you a way to get both of them without having to go all in on the highly competitive phrase. The same goes for high search volume, low competition keywords.
If we continue on with the tennis example, tennis is considered a niche topic. It’s something that doesn’t interest everyone, but those who enjoy it will want to know as much as possible about the sport. They’re highly interested in it and will spend a lot of money to purchase products to make them better at it.
As a result, it is beneficial to go after low search volume keywords even if they don’t bring about a lot of traffic. Google is putting a lot more emphasis on the comprehensiveness of a website and rewarding those who cover topics to the fullest extent.
In fact, a great example of this came in a 2021 update where they targeted affiliate websites with “thin content.” Thin content refers to pieces that don’t add a lot of value or personality to the products or services they promote.
Affiliate marketing websites are notorious for this.
Let’s say you have a site and you’re promoting tennis rackets on Amazon. Some affiliate sites will simply copy everything in the Amazon product description over to their site and slap an affiliate link on it.
You can’t do this, according to Google. They refer to it as “scraped content” and while they won’t penalize you for it, they’re rewarding sites that add insight and interesting anecdotes in addition to product specifications.
How does this tie into low search volume keywords and niche topics?
Targeting low search volume keywords isn’t always about traffic. The goal of your site should be topic mastery and expertise. Google is paying a lot more attention to this nowadays. You can’t simply be the best keyword research expert and expect to rank right away anymore.
Google wants to see you actually understand the topic and are passionate about it. As a result, you can cover extensive topics by researching low search volume keywords that provide a well-rounded piece of content for the reader. Doing so shows you not only understand SEO but understand the topic you’re covering as well.
The cost-per-click is the average cost an advertiser pays to get someone to click on their Google ad. If certain low search volume keywords also have a low cost per click you might want to target them because it would be easy for you to beat out the competition and get to the top of the SERP even if it’s only for 50 people a month.
Keywords that have a high CPC are more competitive and will cost more to get you one click. For example, if you’re targeting a keyword with a $4.00 CPC, chances are you’ll have to have a large budget and be willing to pay more than that per click if you expect to get on the first page.
That cost can add up quickly and it doesn’t mean a conversion. You’re paying more than $4.00 just to get someone to click through to your website. The rest is up to you.
By going after low search volume keywords, there is less competition and the cost of getting someone to your website is lower.
We all know link building is an important piece of the SEO puzzle and acquiring as many high-quality backlinks as possible is crucial if you expect to ever rank for anything. One way a lot of people acquire backlinks is through manual outreach.
You reach out to website owners in your niche to see if they’re interested in either including a link to your content on their site or fixing a broken link by replacing it with your great piece of content.
For this to work, you need to have a great piece of content with traffic that shows the website owner you’re worth their time.
A great way to do this is targeting a bunch of low search volume keywords that are relevant to your niche but might not be the most competitive. By doing so, you’re creating a piece of content that is topically relevant and interesting to the person you’re reaching out to. This increases the chances of them including a link on their site.
Ubersuggest is a great tool and is pictured above in many of the images. All you need to do is input a phrase and the tool will provide relevant keywords as well as their search volume.
There’s really no specific volume because the goal is to find a keyword with as low competition by high search volume as possible. If you can do that, you’ll have an easier time ranking in a shorter amount of time.
Finding low search volume keywords with high traffic isn’t easy. If it was easy, you wouldn’t have thousands of people competing against each other, and we’d all get to rank for whatever keywords we wanted. Utilize Google Trends, research using tools like Ahrefs, and spy on your competition by seeing what keywords they rank for.
Finding the search volume of a keyword is as simple as punching it into one of the various tools. You can use Ubersuggest, Ahrefs, SEMRush, and even Google Keyword Planner. All of these tools will display search volume. Keep in mind these are estimates so the results may vary from tool to tool.
Finding low search volume keywords is a great way to get traffic to your website whether you’re just starting out or making sure your site is topically relevant. There are many pieces to the SEO puzzle and we’re always trying to figure out how to get ahead of our competition.
If you’re struggling to figure out keyword research and SEO, we can help. Be sure to keep these tips in mind as you conduct your research and put together the next list of keywords you plan to target.
Do you think low search volume keywords can help you rank for higher search volume keywords? Let me know why in the comments.
Blogging is a pain.
Not because content is hard to write (worse case you can just hire a writer or agency), but due to the fact that no one can guarantee that your blog post gets read or not.
Just think about it… you spend all this time writing content, but no one can guarantee that it gets seen, shared, or even linked to.
So, I thought it would be fun to analyze popular blog posts and see what common characteristics that they have.
That way you can replicate what they are doing and increase the likelihood that your post gets read.
Now for this study, we deemed a popular blog post as anything that generates at least 1,000 visitors a month from Google organic search (this was based on Ubersuggest data).
We also didn’t exclude any countries and looked at the data from a global level.
Here’s what we learned.
A big thing in common was that popular blog posts rank for at least 38 keywords.
What’s interesting though is posts that generate at least 5,000 visits a month from Google rank for 51 or more keywords.
But the big difference between posts that generate at least 1,000 visitors versus 5,000 wasn’t the number of keywords that they were targeting, it was more so that they were ranking for keywords that were searched on average 984 times a month.
Now granted they didn’t get 984 clicks for each keyword that they ranked for, as no site really gets all the clicks, and there is no guarantee that they were in the number 1 spot.
When looking at this data we decided to dig in a bit more and we randomly picked 300 blog posts that generate at least 1,000 visits a month from Google to see how many keywords they mentioned on their page that contained at least 50 searches a month.
Can you guess what the number was?
Well, after we removed generic one-word terms that aren’t really considered keywords (such as how I mentioned words like “analyze, month, generate, data” within this post but I am not really targeting those keywords), the number comes out to a staggering 76 keywords.
Before I break down how you can come up with a laundry list of keywords to include in every blog post you write, keep this in mind…
Now that we got that out of the way, you can head to Ubersuggest and follow the steps in the video below to come up with blog post ideas as well as 76 plus keywords per post.
Over the years the SEO game has changed. Generally, the longer your content, the more traffic you can get. But there are a lot of edge cases to that rule.
And Google doesn’t really care about word count these days as much as they do for user experience.
See, a user doesn’t really care if a blog post is short or long, they just want to be satisfied with what they have just read.
Nonetheless, we looked at the word count to see what the average post length was for a popular post.
What’s interesting is that posts that generated over 5,000 visitors a month on average weren’t that much longer than posts that generated 1,000 visitors.
The biggest difference was they included more popular keywords within their content. They didn’t necessarily rank for each of those terms, but this gives a post more opportunity to potentially rank and be found.
As I mentioned though, there are always exceptions to the rule. For example, there are popular topics like “how to tie a tie” and you don’t really need tons of words to explain how to tie a tie. You more so need images or even video.
When we looked at every popular blog in our database, we noticed that a lot of sites didn’t include a publish date or an updated date (updated date is used for content that was originally published years ago but was more recently updated).
But for the posts that did contain a date, whether it was the publication date or when the content was updated, we did notice something interesting.
Content that generates 1,000 visitors or more a month on average tends to be 388 days old.
And content that generates less than 1,000 visitors tends to be 593 days old.
This doesn’t mean that Google doesn’t want to rank new, fresh content as in both categories there was fresh, new content that did generate traffic. But a lot of the ranking blog posts were a bit old (but not too old).
Again, keep in mind there are always exceptions to the rule. Going back to the how to tie a tie example, even if that article was 3 years old, it probably would still be relevant as much hasn’t changed when it comes to ties.
But with over 1 billion blogs on the web, it seems like Google prefers newish content over outdated content.
If you have older content, don’t worry, you can always update it to ensure that it continually gets more traffic.
The way you would do this is by following these steps:
It’s so effective that I have a team of people who just update my old content.
Whether you like it or not, if you are going to write content you should do keyword research first.
Picking the right keywords versus the wrong ones can mean that your content doesn’t get traffic or gets thousands of visitors a month.
Now of course there are other elements to your SEO like links and on-page SEO, but for this analysis, we wanted to focus on the characteristics (ones that you can easily control) that make a popular post.
Out of curiosity, do you do keyword research before you write content?
One of the tricky parts about this is the fact parents are such a varied group. Forty percent of US households have at least one child under the age of 18, and that large group includes people from all walks of life.
The USDA estimates that it costs $284,570 (with inflation factored in) to raise a child through age 17.
To successfully target parents through paid ads, you have to deeply understand your target audience and use this knowledge to inform your marketing strategy.
Parents spend a lot of time online, meaning they may be pretty likely to see your paid ads.
For the first time, women in the U.S. are more often having babies in their 30s than their 20s. This means you’re looking at an audience with a lot of millennials who spend a great deal of time on social media. This is also the case with younger parents, and both groups use search engines to find answers to everyday questions.
The difficulty is not reaching parents; it’s targeting the right people with the right message at the right time. For example, there’s no point in reaching a teenager’s parent with an ad for baby formula.
You may have a rough idea about your target audience, but you’ve got to drill down further and figure out what matters to parents when targeting them through paid ads.
When we look back at our childhoods or those of our children, it’s often the big life events that stand out. There’s nothing wrong with turning 31 or 63, but it doesn’t quite carry the same excitement as your eighth birthday.
Events like birthdays, holidays, vacations, and graduations are important to children, and they’re equally important to parents. Even if money tight, most parents are willing to do what it takes to ensure their children have amazing memories of big moments.
For marketers, this is an opportunity to connect with parents. It’s not always easy to know what kids want, but through paid ads, your business can guide parents to the hottest gifts.
This should play an important part in your paid ads, especially at important times of the year like late spring, when kids often graduate from high school. Parents often want to mark these special days with the right gift or by throwing a wonderful party, and your business should be looking to help make sure this happens via paid ads.
Paid advertising is about matching user intent, so make sure you know what products parents need.
What does your target audience look like, and what are its priorities?
Increasingly, parents are millennials. To target parents effectively, many brands have to understand how to target millennials.
Some key points that advertisers need to understand about millennials are generally:
These characteristics are further enhanced by the fact that parents are busy. They want to use technology to help solve problems, and when they buy products, they need the experience to be fast and effective.
This means the experience you offer parents with your ads has to be perfectly optimized. Modern parents won’t waste their time on poorly optimized mobile sites or those with checkouts that take too long.
Paid ads should be backed up by a good user experience. If you get this right, it allows you to focus on solving your target audience’s pain points. Although parents have diverse needs, these often can be broken down into three categories:
If your website experience and products can come together to help parents achieve this, then you may find you have success with your paid ads.
Parents are usually fiercely protective of their children, and your products or services need to fit into this narrative.
When we buy products for ourselves, we make a complicated buying decision. When parents buy for their children, this is amplified. They want to know the products are safe, can benefit their children, and are going to last. If your products don’t demonstrate this, they’re not going to be as appealing for parents.
One of the ways you can help assure parents about your products is by offering a guarantee. If you believe in your products and services, you should be willing to offer assurances to your customers, and which you can state in your advertising.
In my article, “5 Simple Tips to Creating an Unbeatable Facebook Ad Campaign,” my first tip was “your offer will make or break your campaign,” and your guarantee is a part of this. Without the guarantee, your offer probably isn’t as appealing to parents.
Parents have to trust you and your products if they’re going to let your brand into their children’s lives.
As I’ve mentioned, many parents are now Millennials who are very tech-savvy, connected, and collaborative. When it comes to making sales, this means you need to be able to create a brand people can trust. One of the most important aspects of this is social proof.
The stats behind online reviews are impressive:
Reviews play a big part in modern consumer decisions, so you need to have a process in place to make sure you’re getting them. Once you do, you can use social proof to show parents that other parents have bought your product and had great experiences.
Parenting can be challenging, and there are many products out there that promise a lot but fail to deliver. Naturally, parents are eager to avoid such products, so a good review from a fellow parent can go a long way.
Of course, building this trust is based on you offering value for parents. If you’re doing this, you should take every opportunity to showcase it.
Children don’t come with a manual, and even if they did, following it would be nearly impossible. Naturally, parents look to authoritative sources to help them with their parenting—59 percent of parents say they have found useful parenting information on social media in the past 30 days. Your business may well be perfectly positioned to offer this information.
Targeting parents through paid ads doesn’t just have to be about your products. It can also make use of your knowledge.
Rather than just offering a quick solution to a problem, you can use your expertise to explain the reasons for the issue and offer advice.
For example, if a child struggles to organize their homework schedule, you can give parents tips about how to help their child become more organized rather than pushing your time-keeping app. You can naturally work your product into your resources, which begins to create a relationship with the reader.
Millennial consumers have grown up with internet marketing, and they’ve become skeptical about advertising. Using gimmicks doesn’t work with this demographic. It’s about offering value. The way you can do this is by showing your expertise and helping your target audience solve problems.
Your paid ads should have a collaborative feel to them, where you’re working together to make parenting easier, more affordable, and more effective.
What does a parent look like? It’s impossible to answer this question because they rarely look the same. There are so many different demographics within this audience:
The list is endless, and this is a good thing for marketers. If you can narrow down your target audience and understand who’s most likely to buy your products, you can target parents using relevant content.
For example, being a first-time mom is very different from doing it the second time around. First-time moms search for products in different ways than second-time moms, and they look for different things.
Through Google Ads, Facebook, Instagram, and other platforms, you can reach particular audiences. Make the most of this by working on your buyer personas.
Parents are exceptionally busy people. They’re often balancing bringing up a child with full-time employment and everything else that comes with life.
For example, due to work and daily schedules, parents may search for products late at night.
Understanding when parents search the internet can allow you to target them better and make your campaigns more effective.
Dig into your Google Analytics and find out when people are using your site and making purchases. Another great step is to ask parents about how they shop through surveys. People are often willing to answer quick questions, giving you great insights into how to target parents through paid ads.
It can be tricky to target parents through paid ads because they’re such a diverse group. Parents of teens are looking for very different things from parents of newborn babies, and your advertising needs to recognize this.
However, there’s one thing parents share: a desire to do the best for their children. To successfully advertise to parents, you need to understand how your business helps them with this.
By being there for parents on important days, guaranteeing your products’ safety, and helping them with high-value information, you could build relationships that bring in sales. The better you understand your target audience, the easier this should be.
Are parents a key demographic for your business? How do you reach them?
Because the oldest Gen Zers are reaching an age where they can make their own purchasing decisions, you have a whole new audience you can target with your paid ads.
Search interest in Gen Z has climbed so high that as of March 2021, searches for Generation Z surpassed searches for baby boomers and millennials.
In order for your ads to be successful, you need to understand the demographics and characteristics of Gen Z so you can tailor your campaign accordingly.
The ages of those considered to be in Generation Z vary by source.
To add to the confusion, there’s also different terminology used to describe them. While the name “Gen Z” appears to have stuck, this generation of young consumers is sometimes also known as the Zoomers, in contrast to baby boomers.
For this article, I’m using the definition from Pew Research Center, which categorizes anyone born from 1997 to 2012 as part of Gen Z.
Just as baby boomers were defined by the postwar world, Gen Zers have their own unique characteristics tied to the age they were born.
For starters, they’re the first generation to grow up with access to technology throughout their lives. In 1995, two years before the first Zoomers were born, just 44.4 million people worldwide used the internet. By 2000, that number had climbed to 413 million, before roughly doubling every five years up until 2015.
The oldest Gen Zers turned 10 in 2007, the year Apple launched its first iPhone. They’ve pretty much always had access to social media, with the first social platforms starting to gain traction in the mid-noughties.
Generation Z isn’t just unique because they’re digital natives.
They’re the most diverse generation in history. Just 52 percent of US Gen Zers are white, and almost one-quarter have at least one immigrant parent (compared to one in seven Millennials).
What’s more, despite the growing cost of college tuition, Gen Z are better educated than earlier generations. Of 18 to 21-year-olds who weren’t in high school in 2018, 57 percent were in college, compared to 52 percent of Millennials in 2003, and 43 percent of Gen Xers in 1987.
Perhaps as a result of their educational exploits, they’re also less likely to work in their teens and early 20s:
They might be young, but Generation Z is already impacting our economy. In the US alone, they spend an estimated $44 billion a year. Taking their influence on all household spending into account, their annual economic impact climbs to a staggering $600 billion.
So, you should be targeting them through ads, right?
Not necessarily. Generation Z isn’t the best target audience for every brand.
For instance, they don’t seem to like alcohol as much as older generations. Just 15 percent of drinking-age Gen Zers say they drink at least once a week, compared to 28 percent of Millennials and 36 percent of Baby Boomers.
They also watch less TV. They watch over 30 minutes less broadcast TV per day, and they don’t watch any more online TV than the average internet user.
While they might not be a fantastic audience for brands in the alcohol or broadcast TV spaces, there are definitely some things Generation Zers do enjoy.
For instance, they love gaming. Indeed, two-thirds of Gen Z males describe gaming as a core part of their personal identity.
More generally, they have very different ideas of “consumption” than previous generations. To them, the act of buying simply means having access to a product or service, not necessarily owning it.
Or, as consulting firm McKinsey puts it:
As access becomes the new form of consumption, unlimited access to goods and services (such as car-riding services, video streaming, and subscriptions) creates value. Products become services, and services connect consumers.
At this point, I’m going to assume your brand is relevant to Gen Z, and you’re eager to reach them.
With that in mind, here’s a word of warning: advertising to Generation Z is a double-edged sword.
They received their first smartphone at the age of 10.3 and spend an average of three hours a day on their mobile devices. As a result, many Gen Z experience ad exhaustion. They’re 12 percent more likely than average to use ad blockers, with 49 percent saying it’s because there are too many ads on the internet.
However, their buying habits suggest they’re actually extremely receptive to seeing the right sort of ads.
For starters, 44 percent describe social media as a popular source for product inspiration, while 69 percent want to buy directly via social media. What’s more, they’re more inclined than Millennials to make impulse purchases.
It boils down to this: if you target Generation Z with the right products, they might be more likely to purchase it in-store or through social commerce (if you offer it). With that in mind, in this section, I’ll discuss how to target them effectively.
First, a quick disclaimer—you should only target the oldest members of Generation Z. Just as a millennial born in the early 1980s may not share much common ground with one born in the mid-90s, there’s likely to be a lot of disparity between young and (comparatively) old Gen Zers.
These strategies are relevant to reaching young adults right now, but trends will change by the time the youngest Zoomers come of age.
I’ve already noted that Gen Z is the most diverse US generation of all time. Zoomers recognize and champion this, with 71 percent eager to see more diversity in advertising.
While they respond positively to authentic, genuine expressions of diversity, they immediately see through ads that latch onto it as a way to sell a product. As one respondent to a Facebook survey put it: “It has to be authentic diversity, not just brand image.”
Say you’re in fashion e-commerce. You should absolutely use diverse models and messaging, but don’t latch onto Black History Month or International Women’s Day to promote your latest flash sale.
Generation Z hates being patronized.
This should be obvious—we’ve all been teenagers, after all. Yet so many articles about marketing to Gen Z talk about how they have the attention span of a goldfish.
Not only is that untrue, it’s also extremely patronizing. It suggests Gen Z are so obsessed with their phones or playing Fortnite, that they’re simply unable to focus on your brilliant ads.
In reality, Zoomers have better recollection of ads than Millennials or Gen Xers, particularly for skippable ads lasting less than two seconds.
Also, they’re the most educated generation in history and more comfortable with technology than their parents. If you don’t give them the credit they deserve, don’t expect them to buy from you.
Zoomers were raised on a diet of social media. Facebook is older than a lot of Gen Zers, so it’s hardly surprising they’re bored of it.
That’s not to say they don’t use Facebook at all; one-third check it on a daily basis. But they check lots of other channels, too. One in nine use TikTok every day, while one in ten are daily Discord users.
The lesson here is simple: to target Gen Z effectively, you need to focus on a diverse range of platforms, while keeping one eye on the “next big thing” in social media.
You might think your online presence should be geared toward selling your product and building brand awareness.
Zoomers disagree.
Two-thirds say it’s no longer acceptable for companies to stay silent on social justice issues, while three-quarters believe brands have more responsibility than ever to promote social justice.
What’s more, they’re open to brands joining in the conversation via the groups and communities they’re part of.
That means you should incorporate key issues like climate change and the Black Lives Matter movement into your messaging. But, don’t simply use it as a platform for selling—it has to be genuine.
Gen Z is just entering the workforce, so they typically don’t have a ton of money. What’s more, they were hit particularly hard by the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic in terms of job retention.
As a result, the older end of the Gen Z spectrum is much more financially aware. Because of this, you could get a lot of traction from targeted ads that demonstrate the affordability and value of your products.
Advertising to Generation Z can be a real minefield. Some advertisers get it exactly right, but unsurprisingly, lots of others don’t. Here are two examples of ads that get it spot on, and two that missed the mark.
Food delivery services saw big sales growth during the coronavirus pandemic. But with competition from the likes of Uber and Deliveroo, UK-based delivery service Just Eat needed to stand out.
Its answer? A collaboration with the rapper Snoop Dogg!
As a quick glance at the Billboard Hot 100 will tell you, Gen Z love a collaboration, and this ad certainly resonated, clocking up almost 13.5 million views on YouTube.
Take a look at the comments and you can see it’s gained the sort of response you’d typically expect from a “real” music video:
No one likes to be stereotyped, and Gen Z is no exception. Given that they make up more than one-third of the world’s population, it’s understandable they want to be seen as individuals, not all grouped in together.
Despite this, the British Army launched a recruitment campaign aimed at young adults, branding them “Phone Zombies” and “Selfie Addicts”.
That’s a tough sell. If a brand insulted me, I wouldn’t buy a pair of socks from them, let alone potentially lay down my life for them!
As an aside, 61 percent of Gen Zers describe themselves as “global citizens,” which suggests a career in the armed forces might not be a natural fit for them anyway, regardless of the advertising.
Fashion retailer ASOS launched a whole range targeted at Gen Z in which all the clothes are animal-free, sustainable, and gender-fluid.
As part of this, the brand ran a poll through Instagram Stories to ask whether clothes should be gendered, with two-thirds of respondents insisting they shouldn’t be.
This was effectively a double win. Not only did the campaign raise awareness of the Collusion line, but it also proved ASOS cares about the same issues as its audience, and understands the importance of expressing your identity.
Here’s an ad found on the subreddit /r/FellowKid, which is dedicated to naming and shaming terrible examples of Gen Z-focused marketing.
To be fair, Thortful does a lot of good advertising. It has a huge inventory of greetings cards, many of which are actually funny, but this ad is objectively pretty bad.
It smacks of an advertiser desperately trying to link their product to something that’s popular with a young audience.
Also, while the Fortnite bubble hasn’t burst yet, interest in the online shooter game was at its peak in October 2019. Thortful missed the boat on this one.
The word “authenticity” is horrendously overused in marketing, but it’s absolutely crucial to targeting Generation Z effectively.
Remember, Gen Zers expect you to weigh in on social justice issues, and they want you to promote diversity. But if you do it inauthentically, they’ll run.
If issues like these aren’t central to your branding, it’ll be obvious you don’t practice what you preach—and that will drive away these young, savvy, conscious consumers. For help creating your Gen Z marketing strategy, reach out to our top-rated agency.
What are you doing to reach Generation Z through your advertising?
Finding new audiences to target is a constant challenge for marketers. If you’ve never tried marketing for Generation X, you could be missing out on a valuable group of consumers. Why should you customize ads for a Generation X target market? Your customers are individuals, but they also belong to a group based on what … Continue reading How to Target Generation X Through Paid Ads
The baby boomer generation may seem like an afterthought when you put together the target audience for your paid marketing campaigns, but they still hold a lot of the country’s wealth and remain a key purchasing demographic.
Baby boomers were born between 1946 and 1964. This generation still makes up a large portion of the population, with a 23.5 percent share as of 2019. In fact, they were the largest generation in history until millennials surpassed them.
The baby boomers have had a huge impact on social and economic policy and were the target audience for many marketing and advertising campaigns for decades.
The term “baby boomers” actually comes from the fact that there was a high birth rate following the soldiers’ return from World War II. As a result of their high numbers and growth to adult age during a time of economic prosperity, they’re also considered one of the most financially successful generations of all time.
This article focuses on the best strategies to deliver paid ads and marketing campaigns to boomers. To do this, you need to understand the generation’s personality traits, interests, and habits.
Keep in mind that the majority of this generation is reaching retirement age.
Their retirement may look much different than previous generations though. As many as 65 percent do not plan to retire. This is not just due to financial hardship; many enjoy their work, find their work time valuable, and think it’s important to stay active and involved to remain youthful.
They’re also more likely to spend money than previous generations. Their parents and grandparents were pretty tight with their pennies due to growing up in the Depression-era.
Compared to younger generations, boomers may be a bit slower to adapt to technology, and rightfully so. Many still use a landline and write checks rather than using debit cards.
They also don’t have the same trust in technology as younger generations. While younger generations accept that the internet poses a security risk (and are fine with it), many boomers haven’t felt the need to take the risk.
As a result, trust-building is far more important than design and aesthetics. Trust, brand loyalty, reputation, and security are critical to paid ad campaigns targeting baby boomers.
Why even target this generation, to begin with? Why not focus on millennials and Gen-X instead?
It’s because this generation still makes up a large portion of the population.
They also possess a lot of the country’s money and are working past retirement age, which means they’re still spending.
Interestingly enough, they’re the only generation experiencing growth in the workforce, so their influence on the economy is still very real. Plus, 40 percent are starting to spend money online, which opens the doors to more opportunities.
The big question is, do you own a business that could potentially benefit from targeting baby boomers? What are their interests as of right now, and what types of products are they buying? Keeping in mind these individuals are between ages 57-75, what are some baby boomer marketing characteristics you should implement?
First, any business providing accurate and actionable financial opportunities could be one. We find more of this generation is still looking for opportunities at an older age, and the days of “sitting on the front porch retirement” are over.
Businesses selling products to help seniors stay in their homes or help make their lives easier will also have a better shot at selling to this generation.
It’s less about what you’re selling and more about how you sell it.
First and foremost, keep ethics in mind at all times. There are so many slimy methods of marketing to people who are not as “tech-literate.” You don’t want to go that route. There are too many great ways to provide baby boomers with value while also growing your brand.
Marketing to baby boomers is all about trust, brand, reputation, simplicity, and transparency. Keep these five factors in mind as we go through the next few sections.
Most baby boomers are on Facebook, YouTube, and Pinterest, so you’ll want to focus on these three platforms.
Facebook has a vast assortment of ads and ad types you can use like carousel ads, videos, static images, sidebars, and pre-roll ads. Each of these has its time and place, but you want to make sure it’s not too intrusive. Keep in mind that “click-bait” will not work with boomers because they won’t trust you.
Remember, this generation grew up with infomercials, the ultimate bait and switch.
If you’re advertising on YouTube, think about what this person may be doing on YouTube when they see your ad. What are they watching? What are they looking up? One in three use YouTube to learn something. They’re not wasting the day away watching videos for entertainment like younger generations might.
Many of them also turn to YouTube to save time. They’re learning that they can quickly look something up on YouTube to get the information they want, rather than sifting through dozens of TV channels trying to find the right media source.
They want to save time and learn something.
Marketing to baby boomers is all about appealing to their feelings and emotions. The same is true with any generation.
What are they feeling?
We know a majority likely have grandchildren, so they might be online looking for activities to do with their grandchildren or for gifts.
Many of them aren’t retiring any time soon, so they may be looking for solutions to make their working retirement more enjoyable. This could be something to save time or help them learn a new skill they can turn into a side-income during their retirement.
Lastly, Boomers don’t want to rely on their children as much as other generations. They value independence, they want to stay in their homes, and they don’t like when people classify them as “senior” or “elderly.”
The Baby Boomer target market didn’t grow up with technology, smartphones, retargeting ads, or artificial intelligence. No matter what way you look at it, they’re not going to possess the skills necessary to understand a complicated ad.
If you overcomplicate it, you’re going to lose interest.
You need to make sure the entire experience from front to back is simple, quick, trustworthy, and as transparent as possible. Take a walk through your entire funnel or sales process and look for areas where Baby Boomers may get tripped up.
Your price should be front and center, right at the beginning. Do not try to bait them in with videos to entice them, it won’t work. Your ad needs to be straightforward.
Essentially, “this is what I’ve got, this is how much it costs, and this is how you get it.”
Avoid terms like elderly, senior citizen, golden years, aging, etc. They don’t relate to this language because most boomers don’t see themselves this way. They’re not looking to unwind and relax like previous generations. Boomers still possess a strong zest for life, so they may take offense to being called “old.”
This is where things get tricky. You can’t call them old, but you also don’t want to use language that is “too new.” While they’re not as out of touch as their predecessors, they’re still not up-to-date on trends and internet slang.
If they can’t understand your ad or what it is that you’re offering, they will move on. Simplicity is the goal. Advertising to boomers is actually easier because you don’t need to do anything fancy to get attention, but you still need to say the right things.
Millennials are so numb from marketing slapping them in the face that you need to be clever to grab their attention. The same doesn’t apply to boomers. For them, it’s all about trust. If they trust you, they’ll listen to you.
This generation takes longer to make a purchase. They grew up when you had to shop in person or call and talk to a live representative to make a purchase. They wrote checks and money orders and did everything the slow way. They’re not going to respond to you talking a mile a minute about the latest and greatest product they’ve never heard before.
They’re also not going to take your word for it. You need to show them that it works. Including video as a part of your content is an important step in the right direction, as is social proof.
Boomers also value brand loyalty and think you should earn rewards for shopping specific brands and companies consistently. That’s why the majority are members of loyalty programs.
You could use this to your advantage by creating a loyalty program or offering a discount for signing up for a yearly service.
Let’s take a look at some examples and break them down so you can see what we’re talking about in action.
As you look at this first ad, do you think that it will work for people in the baby boomers years?
Probably not.
They likely won’t get it, understand why the person has a beard, or get what the objective is here.
We might realize they’re saying you need a great razor to clean yourself up so you’ll get kissed but it’s a reach. An ad like this may be too “modern” for the older generation.
Here’s a perfect example where keeping it simple wins. There’s nothing creative about this ad. It’s plain and simple.
The ad tells you that it’s the best razor and here’s why. The only thing that could be better is a description of how many razors you get, how much they cost, and how long they last on average.
Transparency wins over cute and cliche.
How about this ad? Any idea why we think it’s a bad choice for boomers? They made the people look so old with a cane, the way they’re dressed, the use of the word “senior,” and the fact that they said, “make moving fun.”
This ad is patronizing and shows baby boomers in a way they don’t see themselves. The truth is, most are still quite active.
Understanding how to market to Baby Boomers is still a relevant topic and we believe it will be for another decade or so. This generation still holds a large economic share, they’re still active, and they show no signs of slowing down. The key is to focus on Facebook and YouTube.
If you’re lacking experience on these two platforms, we have a variety of resources to help you. No matter what, having a definitive buyer persona is the key to all marketing so start there and the rest will come.
What types of unique strategies are you using to target baby boomers? Let me know in the comments!
Finding new audiences to target is a constant challenge for marketers. If you’ve never tried marketing for Generation X, you could be missing out on a valuable group of consumers.
Why should you customize ads for a Generation X target market? Your customers are individuals, but they also belong to a group based on what year they were born. As unique as each might be, they move through some experiences and stages of life together.
What makes Generation X so valuable? We’ll take a look at who these consumers are, what experiences might influence how they respond to advertising, and a few best practices to make sure you hit the mark with your ads.
1965 to 1980 are typically known as the Generation X years.
The name “Generation X” was adopted from a 1991 novel written by Douglas Coupland called Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture. Some say the name also gained popularity due to the generation’s refusal to be defined. The X refers to the variable “x,” allowing them to be named but perhaps not limited by one definition.
Generation X has often been ignored as marketers instead targeted the larger baby boomer and millennial generations. However, a look at their spending tells us that this is a worthwhile audience to target in our marketing.
While stereotypes can be harmful, we can look at their shared experiences to consider what motivates them, what they value, and what they might worry about in their current life stage.
The oldest of this generation grew up during the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal. Others remember the Berlin Wall coming down.
Generation X adopted computers and the internet, lived through Y2K, and lived through the AIDS epidemic. Gen X is the first generation to have exposure to the internet for most of their lifetime, though most didn’t have access in childhood.
People often characterize Generation X as self-reliant, adaptable, independent, and ethical, with “big picture” thinking. They are occasionally viewed as skeptical, but you could also call them critical thinkers. They’re currently considered to be financially stable but also deal hunters.
Why should you target Gen X in marketing? Spending power is one reason. They make up about 25 percent of the population but bring home about 31 percent of the income.
There are about 65 million Generation X, and they outspend millennials by 41 percent and baby boomers by 18 percent.
What brands does Generation X like right now? In their top 10 brands, you’ll find tech, retail, media and entertainment, automotive, and apparel companies. Other categories can include solutions for the worries they currently face, such as aging parents, preserving their health and wellness, protecting their families’ safety, or helping them plan for retirement.
SaaS platforms offer flexibility and affordable ways to make consumers’ lives easier and better, both of which appeal to Generation X.
It’s wise to remember that the oldest of this group may act more like baby boomers, while the youngest may act more like millennials. Generation X marketing strategies should include paid search ads, email marketing, social media, and occasionally even direct mail.
Your online presence matters. Gen X shoppers tend to be careful researchers of companies and products before making purchasing decisions.
Ensure your website is clear, up-to-date, accurate, and full of reassuring information and reviews. If they don’t like what they see online, they’re going to move on, probably to one of your competitors.
Generation X is tech-savvy enough to use Google regularly and frugal enough to search for coupons and promotions. You can target them with promotional paid ads that use the language they’re likely to use for this type of search. Ensure your ad copy uses terms like “discount” or “promo code,” and be clear and authentic about your promotion.
Missteps to avoid? A strong sell isn’t needed or welcomed and could be off-putting, so avoid overpromising. Additionally, 66 percent still shop in brick-and-mortar stores.
Generation X consumers like social platforms, with nearly 78 percent of them being active on social media. Which platforms do they prefer? Statista shows:
Don’t forget platforms like Pinterest and Etsy. Thirty-five percent of Pinterest users are between 30 and 49 years of age, and 27 percent are aged 50 to 64. The average Etsy seller is around 39 years old. The content on Pinterest leans heavily toward their interests, including DIY, cooking, and home projects.
Create campaigns on each platform that target this group directly, and remember to use a range of ad types to ensure you’re capitalizing on these channels. For example, knowing they are heavy Facebook users, you’ll want to use all kinds of Facebook ads including images, dynamic ads, videos, and carousel ads to catch their attention.
Just remember that if they’re following brands on social media, they’re doing it to find out about promotions and discounts. Build some promotions and special offers into your social posting calendar just for followers and fans.
Generation X are loyal to their favorite brands but wary of invasive advertising. They don’t enjoy aspects of digital marketing that seem intrusive to their personal lives and aren’t fans of text messaging or retargeting.
They are more open to email marketing, and including offers and promotional codes in emails can be a great way to attract these customers.
Be authentic, and demonstrate that quality and service are essential elements of what you offer. You’ll need to create ads that speak directly to them, with ad copy and messaging that speaks their language. Use images that reflect real people and the daily lives of Gen X.
They’re mobile-friendly, and 90 percent of them own smartphones. Ensure your website and e-commerce store are optimized for mobile to deliver a great experience and convert visitors to customers.
Brand loyalty means building trust, and this generation wants social proof. Show and tell them they can trust you to deliver on your promises.
Share case studies, display testimonials, enable platforms that invite reviews, and share your best reviews via your advertising.
Enlist strategies to garner more reviews, then use them in your advertising. Use the insights you gain from studies to create ads that feel even more relevant and meaningful to your audience.
How can you inspire your customers to leave more reviews?
Watch for signs that your customer is happy enough to leave a positive review before asking. Good times to ask might be after they’ve expressed satisfaction, when they reordered a product, when they refer you to a friend, or mention or tag you on social media sites.
What can you do with the feedback you gain from customer reviews? Add snippets to your paid ad to help coax searchers choose your ad to click and use reviews, ratings, and testimonials in your ad creative.
Adding social proof to your paid search listings can help you stand out and increase click-through rate (CTR). This can increase your Quality Score, eventually lowering your costs per click (CPC) and increasing your sales.
Get creative and use customer reviews in paid social media ads, being careful to protect your customers’ privacy. Add a quote or line of a testimonial to your email marketing. Add them to your homepage to help attract organic traffic as well.
Generation X is currently at an age where nostalgia can be an effective element in advertising. They like reboots and throwbacks.
Is it that they’re more emotionally connected to the past or nostalgic than other generations? Not necessarily. Generation X has access (and the first significant access) to all their memories and old favorites. They also have access to platforms that allow them to share this content and connect with others based on it.
Generation X is interested in past events, entertainment, pop culture, and music. Seventy-five percent of Generation X spends their YouTube time watching nostalgic content, such as videos relating to past events or people. They also like to watch video content to learn DIY skills and to follow news and current events.
This McDonald’s commercial featuring Jason Alexander from Seinfeld has over 2.5 million views on YouTube. While there may be a few younger viewers catching these classics, you can bet that many Generation Xers remember watching it when it first aired on TV.
How can you use this in your advertising? Stir up nostalgia with throwback elements that remind them of their favorite TV commercials, programs, or movies from when they were younger.
Creating a loyalty program can be an excellent way to reach Generation X. Known for brand loyalty, Gen X is likely to appreciate and respond to companies who reward their loyalty.
They like to stick with brands they trust, so relationship building is important. Often overlooked by marketers, Generation X can be won over by feeling part of an exclusive group.
Building these connections over time will help ensure Generation X shoppers stay loyal and not wander to competitors. If you can show them you care with excellent service and programs that make them feel important, they’ll stick around.
What should loyalty programs include? Generation X likes special treatment, limited offers, and extra attention on special occasions. They’re likely to appreciate birthday promotions, recognition on special anniversaries, and special discounts and events.
The best Generation X marketing examples will use platforms that they use and target their interests and values. Typically, effective ads with this group will target Generation X marketing characteristics and use elements of nostalgia to help build connections quickly.
Watch for crossover ads that use nostalgia to catch the attention of Gen X, like the Domino’s and “Stranger Things” commercial. In this ad, one of the main characters from a popular TV show of the past few years recreates a memorable sequence from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, a 1986 movie well-known to this generation.
Younger consumers will recognize the “Stranger Things” actor. Nearly every Gen Xer will catch the reference and the cameo from one of the original actors.
When a company decides to tap into “Transformers,” “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” and “Robocop,” they’re targeting a specific audience.
These movies came out during formative years for Generation X and when used in ads, can create instant rapport between a Gen X consumer and the brand.
It’s true that each generational group behaves differently, has different motivations and views, and consumes media differently than the others.
Learn a little about how Generation X lives and what they love before writing your ad copy, then let your language and ad copy show that they are your focus. Often ignored, this “middle child” generation is likely to respond positively to being noticed and understood.
Learning more about these differences can help you target these groups with paid ads that are likely to resonate instead of blanket advertising that misses everyone.
Remember, you don’t have to master this yourself! Reach out for expert help with digital marketing so you can connect with valuable audiences in effective ways.
What could targeting Generation X with paid ads do for your business growth?
The tourism industry is rich and exciting, full of cultural knowledge, shared experiences, and career-building opportunities for marketers.
It’s true. The tourism industry we know today was largely created by advertisers. Before the 1920s, travel was a luxury only available to the wealthy. However, with the introduction of paid vacation time in the 1930s, travel became part of regular American life.
Advertisers were quick to jump on this trend, and Americans began seeing tourist ads show up in their favorite print magazines and newspapers, making travel one of the most sought-after experiences of modern life.
These days, travel is more widely available than ever before. With high-speed trains, planes, and boats, you can travel anywhere in the world in a day’s time.
However, modern consumers aren’t looking in print magazines to find travel inspiration. These days, if you want to talk to your biggest customers, you need to do it online.
Creating high-performing tourist ads is not always as easy as it seems. Of course, beautiful beaches and breathtaking views catch people’s attention, but it takes more than pretty pictures to win them over completely.
What’s more, competition in this space is higher than ever before. If you want to outperform your competitors, you need to stand out.
The tricky part about creating great tourist ads is that your target audience is often worldwide.
You could serve ads to every country in the world, but that’s going to eat up a lot of your budget.
Instead, try delivering your ads to specific locations where you know similar audiences are likely to be. This is called geographic targeting, and it helps you define where your ads will be seen to maximize your marketing budget.
For example, you can target other tourism sites in your city or country to grab the attention of tourists already in your area. Or, you could even set a larger radius to encourage people driving by who may not know about your destination just yet.
It’s also good to remember that while you can target your tourist ads to specific places, you can exclude locations you know your target audience won’t be as well. For example, you may not want to target the local university on summer break as most students won’t be there.
Discover the Palm Beaches in Florida used this technique in their impressive “Friends Trust Friends” campaign.
By targeting a 30-mile radius around the town of Royal Palm Beach, they targeted both locals and residents, alongside a lucrative out-of-market tourist market. This results in a 23-percent increase in overnight stays for the brand.
Another way to accurately send ads to your target market is to focus on user interests rather than location.
This can help you show ads to people who are already interested in similar experiences or services you may be offering.
For example, if you run a surf hut on the beach, it would make sense to serve ads to people who are interested in surfing.
If you’re using Facebook ads, you can do this easily by typing in relevant interests in the provided field.
Traverse City Tourism leveraged this technique to bolster their off-season tourism traffic.
They used Facebook ads to promote their cherry blossom blooms by targeting users visiting pages about cherry blossoms. They also created lookalike audiences to maximize their reach.
This excellent campaign, created by TwoSix Digital, brought 319,000+ impressions and doubled their average click-through rate.
It’s always a good idea to offer discounts, package deals, and sales within your tourism ads.
Every month, millions of people search for travel-related keywords on tools like Ubersuggest.
The biggest trend in their searches? People are looking for inspirational vacation ideas and affordable deals, according to Bing and cited by Search Engine Journal.
That means you need to give the people what they want.
Serving special offers, family vacation bundles, and flash sales can be a huge incentive to prospective travelers trying to figure out their next vacation.
What’s more, discounts and deals are a great way to introduce your offerings to new audiences and hopefully retain more loyal customers.
Just remember, discounts and deals have a downside, too.
Loyal customers have a better proven ROI than new customers. While you might spend $5,000 to acquire a new customer, you may only need to spend $200 to keep one you already have.
Deliver your discounts at a reasonable rate, and make sure you’re targeting the right audiences to ensure your budget is spent wisely.
Great customer service starts with an in-depth knowledge of your customers’ wants and needs.
To deliver a truly exciting experience that will improve your customer retention, you need to anticipate customer questions and include that information in your tourist ads.
For example, a hotel might promote free Wi-Fi or complimentary breakfast options, knowing that this will incentivize customers to choose your spot over another.
You can advertise convenience features as well, such as close to transit, walkable, or included in city sightseeing passes.
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Tourism is all about the experience, and what better way to showcase your unique offering than with engaging video and photo assets.
Visual content in marketing campaigns can help you connect with your audience and help them imagine what it’s like to visit your location.
You can use photo, video, and graphic elements within your tourist ads to deliver this messaging.
When using videos and images in your tourist ads, make sure they are contextually clear. Don’t post a photo of a waterfall if you are advertising a kayak trip. Similarly, if your tourist ad contains a video of a white-sand beach, be sure to include details on your hotel or service to attract the most qualified leads.
What’s more, many brands have seen success by experimenting with dynamic visual content.
For example, Travel Alberta used a 360-degree video in their Facebook ads to create interactive, immersive experiences for users.
By interacting with the ad, users could explore fossils in historic Drumheller in Canada. They could even click around in each scene to explore further into the caves.
According to Crowd Riff, these tourist ads resulted in 130,000 views for Travel Alberta, along with 600 shares and 300 comments from users who loved the campaign.
Market research is essential if you want to read your audience’s mind.
If you want to create truly effective tourist ads, you need to understand who your past guests are, what brought them to you, and how you can get more guests like them in the future.
For example, if you know most of your guests come from small towns on the West Coast, you can use that information to target that area.
Similarly, if you find yourself seeing an influx of visitors from neighboring towns, it may be worth localizing your marketing to attract those customers better.
This research will help you develop an idea of what a common guest might look like. From there, you can target a highly specific and relevant audience.
As we discussed before, the best customers are repeat customers because they cost less to keep and allow you to better predict your profits going forward.
According to research by Frederick Reichheld of Bain & Company, increasing customer retention rates by five percent can increase your profits by 25 percent%. That’s a metric worth aiming for!
How can you get more long-term customers and maximize your marketing budget when creating tourist ads?
The secret is to invest in remarketing campaigns. This will allow you to target people who have already shown interest in your service or location and give you an opportunity to bring them back to your business.
When doing remarketing for tourist ads, be sure to do your research. Most tourists visit many websites to compare and check prices.
If you see a customer returning to your website over and over again, it may be a good time to serve them a discount option or promote your complimentary services.
You can also target customers who completed specific actions, such as buying a tour pass or signing up to your mailing list.
Remarketing strategies can help increase your conversions and sales, alongside creating a stronger roster of repeat customers.
User-generated content (UGC) can help you get more shares, likes, and engagement from your audience by leveraging their influential power.
In tourist ads, user-generated campaigns are a great way to spread your brand’s message to interested audiences.
People love to post photos and videos of their travels, so why not use that trend to your advantage? What’s more, it’s a cost-effective method of advertising that won’t break your budget.
A UGC campaign for a tourist ad might look like offering discounts or incentives to users who post about your business. If you’re a restaurant, this might look like discounts on a bill for users who post a photo of a specific food item. If you’re a hotel, you can offer users complimentary services if they check in on social media.
You can also use these UGC materials on your website to show potential tourists what their experience could look like.
Visit Duluth used this tactic in their Summer Guide to Duluth campaign, where real-time photos and videos of tourists were displayed in a UGC gallery on their website.
It’s important to lead your tourist ads toward your website or other lead conversion points to direct them to points of sale.
Creative landing pages are a great way to customize your user journeys and improve the performance of your tourist ads. Landing pages give you extra opportunities to communicate your unique selling points, such as complimentary services, licenses, or nearby experiences.
Visit Indy put their landing pages to work in a creative tourist ad campaign where they used video content and persona-specific landing pages to engage users. For instance, their “foodie” persona was directed to a landing page that displayed “Things Every Foodie Should Do in Indy.”
The results were a three-times increase in click-through-rates and a more optimized budget for the brand.
Travel and tourism are a global phenomena, so don’t get stuck relying on only one search engine to help your campaigns.
Bing is widely used by global audiences, especially when it comes to travel.
Setting up Bing ad campaigns is often cheaper than ads on Google. While the performance metrics aren’t as high, it is worth investing a small budget into Bing so you don’t miss out on any new audiences.
Also, since competition on Google can be high, Bing gives an opportunity to outperform your competitors when creating tourist ads. According to Spinutech, Bing budgets can be 20-35 percent lower than traditional AdWords budgets.
As more and more people search for vacations, experiences, and deals online, the importance of strategic tourism marketing will only grow.
Successful tourist ads leverage all aspects of your conversion funnel in order to best engage with your varied audiences. Audience targeting, visual content, remarketing, landing pages, and user-generated content can help you attract audiences from around the world to your destination.
From there, it’s all about delivering unique and exciting customer experiences to keep your customers coming back year after year.
What other marketing tactics have you used in tourism advertising?
The post How to Target Tourists Through Paid Ads appeared first on Neil Patel.
Millennials are something of a mythical bunch in society. Much is said about their behaviors and preferences, yet many of the stories seem to contradict. Even narrowing down what age group millennials represent is challenging, and many people have differing views.
This confusing picture makes it challenging to target millennials through paid ads, but don’t let it put you off. Let’s look at who millennials are and how you can use that data to create targeted ads that will convince them to convert.
Millennials are defined as “people reaching young adulthood in the early 21st century.” The Pew Research Center further defines the group as those born between 1981 and 1996, though that time period has shifted over time.
Millennials are now the most populous group in the US, making up 21.97 percent of the population, and this trend is set to continue well into the 2050s.
This makes understanding millennials crucial to creating paid ads that actually drive revenue.
One of the key things that make millennials unique is their relationship with technology.
Millennials were born into a world where modern technology hadn’t yet taken hold in daily life like it has today. However, they did grow up in an age where technology was transforming the way we live, so they aren’t new to it.
Generation X adapted to digital technology as adults, and Generation Z have never known life without the smartphone or super-fast internet, but millennials have a foot in both worlds.
The rapid shift to a digital world means millennials’ lives have followed a different path to those generations before and after them. This has influenced them in many different ways.
Of course, it’s hard to ascribe common characteristics to such a diverse group, but some traits seem to be common in this generation, including:
Keep in mind; this is just a rough picture of millennials. There are still individual people with unique politics, education levels, likes, and dislikes. However, these insights need to inform your paid ad strategy.
If you successfully target millennials through paid ads, you’ll engage 21.97 percent of the US population and 2 billion people worldwide. While millennials are more receptive to certain products, this is a huge market for virtually any business.
However, millennials pose several challenges to marketers. First, it is a large, diverse group, and secondly, they’re so accustomed to advertising that some think they’ve become immune to it.
Nobody is immune to advertising, and millennials click paid ads every day. The trick is finding the right strategy.
It starts with understanding your target audience. If your product doesn’t solve the problems millennials have or fit their view of the world, then this group shouldn’t be your primary target.
For example, businesses that provide traditional weddings and razor blade manufacturers have a notoriously difficult time advertising to millennials. This isn’t because this generation is immune to advertising, it’s because the products aren’t as closely aligned to the people’s wants and needs (think of the proliferation of beards in society today versus 20 years ago).
Instead, it’s businesses in travel, tech, fast food, and other sectors where the products match millennials’ specific pain points that are finding success.
If millennials are a key part of your target audience, then paid advertising is an effective option, because it allows you to reach these people where they’re “hanging out.” Ninety percent of millennials are on Facebook, making it exceptionally easy to reach these people with your message.
A key part of marketing is getting your message seen, and millennials give you ample chances to do this.
To successfully target millennials through paid ads, you have to remember this group is very tech-savvy, and they’ve grown up with online advertising.
They see through the cheap gimmicks and aren’t coerced into clicking for no reason. Therefore, you should focus on offering genuine value. The strategies you use to target millennials through paid ads must add to the experience, rather than just serving your own purposes.
Here’s a few ways to successfully target millennials with paid ads.
The good thing about millennials is they are easy to reach. A huge percentage are active on social media, but to make the most of this, we need to understand what platforms millennials are using.
In the past, this was pretty easy. People had Facebook, Twitter, and maybe Instagram. There weren’t many other popular options. Today there are dozens of social media platforms, with new ones popping up every day.
Let’s look at what percentage of millennials use some of the most popular platforms weekly:
Additionally, LinkedIn’s audience is 38 percent millennials aside from these platforms, and 19 percent of millennials are using TikTok.
There are plenty of opportunities out there to target millennials through paid ads. The ability to reach this group isn’t difficult; the tricky part is getting your medium and message right.
These platforms rely on marketing revenues though, so they’re constantly innovating and finding new ways for advertisers to engage their users. For example, Pinterest Story Pins, or Instagram filters let you offer the experience millennials are looking for.
Many studies point to millennials closely held values, and three that are commonly referenced are personal responsibility, diversity, and sustainability.
It’s no surprise, given that millennials make up such a large percentage of the population that these values are being highlighted more in advertising. We often see ads that reference issues that are close to millennials’ hearts, such as climate change and equality.
If your brand is active in these issues, then this is something you should be highlighting in your advertising.
Take Allbirds shoes. they entered the highly-saturated shoe market in 2015, where they faced huge competition. Through a highly-effective advertising campaign that played on their shoes’ sustainable credentials, sales have exploded, and today the company is worth $1.4 billion.
There’s no crazy marketing strategy, it’s just clear messaging that hits on people’s (millennial’s) values.
Millennials grew up in the digital age, and for the most part, they’ve seen all the tricks. They’re used to gimmicky advertising tricks to get their attention, and they learned to filter these out.
What cuts through the noise with millennials (and this is closely related to their values) is being honest and upfront with your advertising. This group knows if something sounds too good to be true, then it probably is, so there’s no point in over-promising and under-delivering.
This ties in with creating paid ads that appeal to millennials’ values; if you’re not serious about sustainability, or equality, or whatever it might be, then millennials are more likely to hold you to account.
This group grew up in a world of big (often faceless) corporations, but thanks to technology, they have a chance to see behind the branding and see the values behind a company. This can be a great opportunity for your advertising, but it’s got to be done in a clear, honest way.
For example, Allbirds doesn’t just use convenient slogans about sustainability in their paid ads. It’s a theme that’s central to its entire customer journey, and it delivers on its promises.
Fifty-five percent of 13 to 35-year-olds send memes every week, and 30 percent do so daily. That’s a lot of memes!
Humor plays a huge role in millennial culture, and it’s something you can use in your paid ads. Funny ads are nothing new; just take a look back at some of the classic TV ads, but for some brands keep things very straightlaced online.
When used in content and ads, memes can have many benefits:
People enjoy humor, and there’s certainly a place for it when you target millennials through paid ads. Just make sure your ads reflect the values of your business and resonate with your target audience. Otherwise, it can backfire.
The boozy brunch, avocado toast, and emojis are just some of the reported millennial trends in recent years. When 21.97 percent of the population enthusiastically gets behind something, you can bet it’s a factor to target with your marketing.
If you keep seeing something crop up in popular culture, then check it on Google Trends and see if it’s worth factoring into your marketing.
Remember that millennials are cynical consumers of advertising, so if it’s a reach to link your products to the trend, it’s probably best to leave it alone rather than look like you’re just trying too hard.
One of the best ways to learn about your target audience is simply to ask them questions. Millennials now make up the largest proportion of the workforce, so there are bound to be some in your office.
Obviously, your co-workers have jobs to do, but it won’t hurt to run a few ideas by them. Millennials are a very diverse group, so they won’t be able to speak for everyone, but they might be able to give you some ideas about what works and what doesn’t with this generation.
Brands are always trying to reach millennials through paid advertising, so there are lots of examples, some of which have had tremendous success, and others that are best forgotten. Let’s take a look at the best and the worst of the bunch.
Here are a few ads that nailed millennial marketing.
This is a great example of brands capitalizing on millennial trends in a positive way.
In 2013, a series of YouTube videos found huge success by taking video footage of normal events and overlaying them with “bad lip reading.” One of the most successful videos was “The NFL: A Bad Lip Reading,” which has over 72 million views.
Rather than take offense at the light-hearted fun, the NFL embraced the trend and teamed up with McDonald’s to create their own version.
Airbnb was founded in 2008 and was valued at over $100 billion when it went public in 2020. Part of its success has been a product that is closely aligned with the values of millennials, and its advertising continues to capitalize on this.
Messages such as “Let’s Keep Travelling Forward,” and “We Accept” fit perfectly with the ideals millennials respond to, and this has helped bring the company great success.
What does it look like when millennial marketing goes wrong? Here are a few ads that missed the mark.
It was widely accepted that McDonald’s missed the mark with its fish fillet ad because it’s seen as emotional manipulation.
Emotion is a big part of any ad, but it’s got to be done in the right way. This ad just seems like McDonald’s is using a child’s grief to sell its sandwiches, and that’s something millennials will see through.
Millennials tend to feel a personal responsibility to make a positive change in the world, but brands that exploit that drive will suffer. For many people, this Pepsi ad featuring Kendall Jenner did just that.
Aired during a time of heightened tension around America, the ad seemed to trivialize the cause of the protests and struck the wrong chord with millennials.
Millennials are a diverse, tech-savvy group that were brought up with advertising, so it’s no surprise that it takes some fine-tuning to get your targeting right.
When you take the time to understand millennials, discover what values they hold dear, the platforms they engage with, and the types of content they respond to, then you will find you can successfully advertise to this group.
For some businesses, millennials simply won’t be part of their target market, but with this group making up over a fifth of the population, the majority of businesses are going to have to learn how to target them through paid ads.
Have you had success advertising to millennials?
The post How to Target Millennials Through Paid Ads appeared first on Neil Patel.