The best way to find and target consumers has changed over the years. While marketing largely started with out-of-home and print advertising, digital marketing is now the main player. Brands can learn so much from individuals’ on-site behaviors, more than they can from how a billboard alongside a highway is performing for them. However, the mass amount of data that brands can obtain can be overwhelming and difficult to analyze and understand. As a result, some marketers would still choose to ignore the data and go with their gut on decisions.
As you may expect, gut instincts aren’t always the best approach, especially compared to tactics rooted in more data-driven efforts. With an unpredictable economy, changing algorithms, and constant social media updates, marketing isn’t a straightforward path. Not to mention, marketing campaigns can be quite expensive, so wasting money on an underperforming campaign can be a costly mistake. Thankfully, new developments in targeting tools and techniques are now available to assist marketers in their all-important decisions. The key to benefiting from them is knowing how to use them and knowing what results to expect.
Predictive Audiences: The Answer to Anticipating Consumers’ Needs
Predictive audiences are consumers grouped together based on how they are most likely (or predicted) to engage and behave in the future. Actions can range from purchasing to removing themselves from an email subscriber list. This is often seen as a more sophisticated type of targeting because marketers leverage sophisticated algorithms and metrics to analyze and group similar audiences together. The tools lean on AI, machine learning, and first-party data, making them a more efficient solution for marketers. With this basic understanding of predictive audiences, below are three ways that leveraging them can transform your marketing strategy.
1. Tailor Marketing Messages
Predictive audiences, powered by AI and machine learning, are gaining traction as a more effective alternative to traditional third-party data targeting. By analyzing consumer behaviors, browsing history, and preferences, these audiences help marketers anticipate when users are most likely to engage or convert. This allows for more precise targeting. When marketers can deliver timely, relevant messages, it can significantly improve campaign performance.
Speaking directly to the consumer is a more customized approach, one that is likely to pay off in the form of a conversion. From tailored messaging, marketers are more likely to see higher engagement levels in the form of click-through rates and increased customer retention. Additionally, with tailored messages, less money is spent on marketing campaigns that don’t work or don’t resonate. You know that the messages you’re sending out will hit a chord and therefore the ROI, or return on investment, will be higher.
2. Make Informed Decisions
Predictive audiences provide valuable insights that can help inform your overall marketing strategy. Instead of being reactive, these insights allow marketers to be more proactive in their approach. You won’t be following customers, but customers will be drawn to your brand based on the finessed segmentation you’re able to apply.
Moreover, you’ll quickly start to notice patterns of behavior amongst your audience segments. For example, you may notice that when emailing a customer who lands on your site, the third email sent within a week leads to more unsubscribers. However, sending the third email a week or two later may lead to an on-site engagement. Knowing this, you can change the delivery date of the emails and gain more conversions as opposed to unsubscribers.
3. Discover New Markets
Maybe you already have a list of typical buyer personas. But even with all the in-depth market research you conducted and trends you analyzed, it’s possible that you aren’t tapping into your full potential. Because predictive audiences analyze patterns and behaviors based on data sets, they can help marketers find new demographic and geographical areas to target.
If you’re a sunscreen brand, you may be solely focused on vacation and beach areas. However, marketing to large urban areas with higher levels of income, such as New York City, Boston, and Chicago, means you’re reaching those who can travel often. Also, individuals in these areas may be looking for a warm-weather escape during the winter months. A social marketing campaign tied to the colder times of years in these areas may be advantageous for your brand. Predictive audiences can inform you exactly when and to whom you should target, allowing for better efficiency.
Tips and Takeaways
As the digital landscape continues to adapt and change to new technologies, brands and marketers need to keep up with the pace. Businesses that rely on outdated targeting habits can be trampled by competitors who are leveraging the newer tools. So even if third-party cookie targeting is not fully deprecating to the extent that many thought, it is seen as an older technology when compared with predictive audiences.
Predictive audiences will only become more sophisticated as the data improves and supports it. In many ways, marketers still have a lot to learn from AI. As this technology improves, so too will the types of predictions that predictive audiences will be able to bring forward. The more marketers are comfortable with the predictive audiences today, the better they will be able to lean on them for future insights and learnings.
