How Do I Segment Audiences for My Ads?

Introduction

Targeting the right audience is crucial for any successful advertising campaign. Without proper audience segmentation, you end up wasting budget on the wrong people and seeing poor campaign performance as a result.

That’s why taking the time to divide and target distinct audience groups can pay huge dividends for your ads. Audience segmentation allows you to tailor your messaging, creative, and strategy to resonate with each segment you want to reach.

This guide will walk through the essentials of effective audience segmentation for ad targeting. You’ll learn:

• Different ways to split up audiences based on demographics, interests, behaviors and more
• Step-by-step instructions for setting up audience segments across platforms like Facebook and Google
• Tips to track and optimize performance for each of your audience groups
• Common mistakes to avoid when defining your target segments

With the right segmentation approach, you can boost conversion rates, lower your cost per acquisition, and get in front of the audiences most likely to engage with your ads. Our goal is to provide everything you need to implement audience segmentation successfully. Let’s get started!

Ways to Segment Audiences

There are several key ways to segment your target audiences for more effective ad targeting.

Demographic Segmentation

Demographic segmentation involves dividing your audience based on attributes like age, gender, location, income level, education level, marital status, and more. For example, you can target ads to women ages 25-34 living in suburban areas with household incomes over $75,000. The major demographic factors to consider are:

• Age: Target different age groups like millennials, Gen Z, middle-aged, retirees, etc.
• Gender: Target men and women separately.
• Location: Target different geographic regions, cities, rural vs urban areas.
• Income: Target specific income ranges and socioeconomic statuses.
• Education: Target high school graduates, college graduates, advanced degree holders.
• Marital/Family Status: Target single people, married couples, parents, etc.

Demographic segmentation works well for products and services that appeal more strongly to certain age groups, genders, or other attributes. Keep in mind it may exclude potential customers outside the target segments.

Interest Segmentation

Interest segmentation divides your audience based on their hobbies, passions, purchase behaviors, content preferences, and more. For example, you can target people interested in cooking, travel, sports, video games, music, and other interests. Some key interest factors are:

• Hobbies: Target people who enjoy cooking, travel, arts, sports, gaming, and more.
• Purchasing behavior: Target frequent buyers, big spenders, impulse shoppers, etc.
• Content topics: Target people who read about business, tech, entertainment, health, etc.
• Brand affinity: Target fans of certain brands and products.

Interest segmentation works well for products and services with a clearly defined audience. It allows personalized messaging that resonates with each segment.

Behavioral Segmentation

Behavioral segmentation divides your audience based on how they interact with your business. For example, you can target new visitors versus returning visitors, frequent buyers versus one-time shoppers, website subscribers versus non-subscribers, and more. Some key factors are:

• New vs returning visitors: Target people visiting your site for the first time separately from repeat visitors.
• Loyalty status: Separate frequent, repeat customers from occasional shoppers.
• Purchase history: Target people based on past purchases and order frequency.
• Page views: Segment visitors by how many pages they view per visit.
• Subscriber status: Separate subscribed email/newsletter members from non-subscribers.

Behavioral segmentation allows personalized messaging based on each customer’s relationship with your brand. It helps convert new visitors into repeat buyers.

Setting Up Segments on Ad Platforms

Step-by-Step Guide for Facebook Business Manager

1. Navigate to the Audiences section in Business Manager and click “Create Audience”.
2. Select “Custom Audience” and choose the type of audience you want to create based on your goals (e.g. website visitors, email list, etc.).
3. Upload the relevant customer data or specify the website pixel/API for collecting user data.
4. Name your audience and review the number of users who match. Adjust audience parameters if needed.
5. Once created, the audience can be selected when setting up Facebook or Instagram ad campaigns.

Step-by-Step Guide for Google Ads

1. Click “Audiences” in the sidebar menu and choose “+ Create audience”.
2. Select the audience source – website visitors, customer lists, similar audiences, etc.
3. Follow the prompts to input website tag, upload customer data, name your audience, etc.
4. Use the audience when setting up ad groups or campaigns.

Other Platforms

• Twitter: Create tailored audiences from website visitors, app users, email lists or other sources. Use for promoted tweets.
• LinkedIn: Create targeted audience templates to select for Sponsored Content and Sponsored InMail.
• Quora: Target ads to users based on interests and demographics.
• Reddit: Target interest-based subreddits and communities for Reddit Ads.

Tracking and Optimization

Once you’ve set up your ad segments, it’s crucial to track and optimize their performance. Here are some tips:

Track Relevant Metrics for Each Segment

• Conversions: This is the ultimate goal. Closely monitor the number of conversions (sales, sign-ups, etc) from each segment.
• Click-through-rate (CTR): Higher CTR indicates an engaged audience. Track CTR for each segment’s ads.
• Cost per click (CPC): Lower CPC means cheaper clicks. Monitor CPC across segments to find the most affordable audiences.
• Bounce rate: High bounce rates may signal poor targeting. Check landing page bounce rates for each segment.

Optimize Based on Performance

• Kill underperforming segments: If a segment consistently has low conversion rates or high CPC, pause it and reallocate spending.
• Increase budgets for top segments: Boost spending on your best-converting segments for more conversions.
• Refine targeting: Tighten underperforming segments by adding more demographic, interest and behavioral filters.

A/B Test Segments

• Test ad copy: Try different ad copy and headlines with each segment to identify what resonates.
• Test creatives: A/B test ad images, videos and formats to see what performs best.
• Test landing pages: Try sending different segments to unique landing pages tailored to them.
• Test offers: Some segments may respond better to certain discounts or promotions. A/B test various offers.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

When segmenting your audiences, it’s easy to make some mistakes that will limit your ad performance. Here are some of the most common pitfalls to watch out for:

Too Broad or Too Niche Segments

You need to find the right balance when defining your audience segments. Segments that are too broad, like “people who like sports” may include a lot of people who aren’t likely to convert on your ads. On the flip side, overly niche segments like “baseball fans under 30” can limit your reach and make it hard to spend your full budget. Try to find segments that are focused but still have enough audience size.

Not Enough Audience Size for Segments

While niche segments can sometimes work for awareness campaigns, most performance marketing needs a certain volume of people to target in order to get conversions. Make sure each of your segments has at least 50,000-100,000 people in it for prospecting and retargeting campaigns.