SEM Tools: Risks, Limitations & Best Practices - Part III: Demographic Targeting

In the previous two posts in this series, I discussed key elements to pay attention to in geo targeting and content targeting. In the final post in the series, I will discuss the risks, limitations and best practices in using demographic targeting.

Part III: Demographic Targeting

Demographic targeting is a relatively new tool currently offered by MSN AdCenter and Google Adwords (for limited site targeted content campaigns). Through demographic targeting you can target your audience based on gender, age, ethnicity, family income and even whether they have children at home or not. This would be one of the greatest tools for search engine marketing if completely accurate, since you will be able to show your ads to the preferred demographic. However, there is still room for improvement.

1. Inaccurate User Information

Search engines base demographic targeting on the information users enter at the time of signing up for any of their products. MSN AdCenter, for example gets this information from MSN Hotmail and Microsoft Windows signups. It’s a common knowledge that people give inaccurate information during signups and there is no shortage of fake Hotmail and Gmail profiles on the internet. Search engines base their trends on this information which is perhaps not entirely accurate.

For example, a 50 year old man in Canada can easily create a user profile of a 27 year old woman in San Diego, California. Thus a cosmetics ad intended for women in their 20s would not reach its intended audience in this case.

2. Again, know your business

Just like , demographic targeting would be applicable only for certain businesses and not for others. If your product is targeted towards a particular demographic, it may make sense to use this tool.

When I looked at the demographic report for the keywords "evening gown" and "tuxedo" from MSN AdCenter’s new MS Excel Add-in "Ad Intelligence", I could see very clear gender-based search trends. If you are a business which aims to sell evening gowns and tuxedos, you should keep two sets of keywords, one targeted towards men and the other towards women. 

Similarly, if you look at the demographics for the keyword "baby clothes," the majority of searches are from women between the ages of 18 and 50. 

On the other hand, if you look for demographic trending of electronics related keywords like "hdtv" and "digital camera," the search volume doesn't skew strongly towards one gender or age group. In this case demographic targeting would limit your reach more than necessary and is not recommended.   

All said, you should have enough data and proof to determine which demographic group is more likely to buy your product before you use this feature.

Unlike geo and content targeting, demographic targeting is relatively new. I am still not completely confident of its accuracy as many web users likely enter incorrect information. I am positive though, that the tool will become more robust in future. If you decide on using this tool, I would strongly recommend conducting research on demographic trends in your business from both internal and external sources.

Comments

[Local SEO Guide]

Totally agree with you on the accuracy issue here. But even more problematic is the user interface for these tools. Until they get rid of the rotating icon thing, I doubt these tools will find a big audience.