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Your target audience can be difficult to engage, but with the right tactics used at the right time with the right creative, you’ll hit the bullseye by maximizing the effectiveness of your digital advertising. When talking about banner ads, it’s the targeting that gets tricky.

Here are a few targeting methods you should be aware of – techniques to help you aim your digital darts if you will.  Please keep in mind it’s not a one or the other sort of deal. You will typically want to mix and match your targeting to maximize your results.

• Direct purchasing – This is where you pay a site directly to display your banner ads. This will provide you with great reach into the site’s audience.  If you go this route, ensure the site is related by product or service or tightly aligned with the lifestyle of your product or service. Expect higher than average CPM costs ($3-$4 CPM).

• Contextual and Semantic Targeting – Advertising networks like DoubleClick (Google) analyze the pages to determine the subject matter of the content allowing the people who want to advertise to place their content on page with related content. The idea is that the viewer will be more interested in your banner ad because it is relevant to what they are viewing on the site with banner ad.

• Behavioral Targeting/Look-a-Like – Provides the ability to show ads to people who are visiting sites related to certain themes, but not just on those themed site.  An example would be someone who visits several car related sites but then visits a cooking site and see your ads for “Tire Shine.”  By utilizing tracking cookies we know that even that they are on a unrelated site, they have an interest in what you define in your behavioral targeting.

• Geo/Local Targeting – This allows us to target people just in a certain area.  When you have a local business, or a local event, or anything that local messaging would help amplify this should be a consideration.

• Demographic Targeting – This method of targeting allows you to target an audience with demographic factors that you define.  While this is not a perfect science, the networks who offer this type of targeting typically use third party data to define which sites have a demographic audience that match what you want to engage with.

• Retargeting – Retargeting is one of the most interesting targeting tactics for banner ads in my opinion. It goes for the big impact. Other targeting methods might be more focused on general awareness and getting eyes on the brand, while retargeting works to keep  eyes on the brand. To do this, the advertiser must first place a cookie in the visitor’s browser when they visit a website, landing page or blog post. Once that tracking cookie is placed, any time they visit a site that partners with your advertising network, you can show your ad, and show your ad again, and again. Essentially you follow them around and burn your brand in their brain. The good thing is it doesn’t have to be creepy. You can set limits on how many time they can see an ad.  You should also be aware of your service or products’ creepiness factor.  If you sell products that consumers don’t want to be reminded that they use or need, retargeting might not be a great idea.

While this post only covers the main targeting techniques for banner advertising there is still lot more to it.  If you have questions on the methods or tricks to share that you have used to maximize your results please let us know in the comments below. If you are looking for any assistance in planning your online advertising or brand strategy you should get into contact with us.