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Targeting

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Digital Marketing - Study Notes:

What is targeting?

Targeting allows you to place your ad in front of the right people and the right websites. We are targeting people and websites because they might have an interest in us or there might be an alignment between the website and our brand itself.

Google Display Planner

A very useful tool on the Google Display Network, to get targeting ideas, is called the Google Display Planner.

The Google Display Planner allows you to enter either your website or a number of keywords and it will present back to you the impressions available, associated targeting methods, placements, the ideal topics, the ideal audiences, and the ideal keywords that you may want to include as part of your Google Display Network plan.

Types of targeting

There are two types of targeting, and these are key differences.

Audience targeting

This is targeting people because they fit a certain profile. That can be they have a certain interest in things or they're in the market for something or they're being retargeted. We are targeting people in this instance. That's the first type of targeting.

Contextual targeting

This is based on the keywords that are included in the site or indeed the type of site that we'd like to target. So that's what's called topic targeting. So if a website's sole focus is cars we might find that under the automobile section of topics, or if a website's sole focus is health we might find it under the health and lifestyle topics options.

So, again, we're not targeting people in this instance, we're targeting the type of sites and that content that is on those sites. So very important to distinguish between audience and contextual targeting.

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Lauren Murphy

As Head of Social Media for the creative agency Goosebump, Lauren’s current role is to create and implement social media strategies and content strategies for a portfolio of clients spanning a wide range of industries. Her team of creatives and strategists specializes in delivering innovative and integrated social media campaigns that drive conversions. Her work has been recognised with a wide range of awards, including the Irish Social Media Awards and Digital Media Awards. 

Data protection regulations affect almost all aspects of digital marketing. Therefore, DMI has produced a short course on GDPR for all of our students. If you wish to learn more about GDPR, you can do so here:

DMI Short Course: GDPR

The following pieces of content from the Digital Marketing Institute's Membership Library have been chosen to offer additional material that you might find interesting or insightful.

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