Guide to Permission-Based Audiences //

Marketing is all about the people. All marketing campaigns must ask the same question: Who are your ideal prospects and what will motivate them to engage with you brand?

Targeting options in digital marketing, particularly PPC, have been quite a luxury over the past decade. We have been able to track who interacts with us, and we can use lists to target our audience.

Although many of our audiences remain available, there are more rules that protect users. This is a good thing, as it means we can have consensual conversations and not pester people who are unlikely to convert.

But not all industries are able to reach all audiences.

This guide will include:

• The difference between first-party and native audiences.
• Strategies to attract first-party audiences
• How to connect audiences with the right message

What is the difference in native audiences and first-party information?

Before we get into audience strategy, we need to know the differences between native audiences and those we create from first-party data.

Native audiences use consent-based behavioral data:

• Search queries.
• Sites visited.
• Visited locations
• Past purchasing behavior.
• Machine learning and persona models

These sources fuel audiences like:

• In market: Shows strong interest in the product/service.
• Life milestones: This is a high likelihood of reaching a significant milestone.
• Affinity: Likely interested in overarching hobbies/goods/services.
• Custom intent: Advertiser-influenced audiences based on search terms or sites visited.
• Similar audiences: Not targetable by itself. High likelihood of being similar to first-party audience.

Smart bidding is built around native audiences and it’s a great reason to delegate bids for ad networks. Their viability is dependent on user consent. Sometimes they are difficult to staff or cannot be used by certain industries.

Advertisers have the option to use observation mode to determine which native audiences are driving their traffic. They can also exclude certain audiences that they do not wish to reach.

Although you can set a target to target only native audiences, this will negate the built-in algorithmic audiences. It’s usually better to target native audiences in one way or the other.

• Avoid unimportant audiences and use smart bidding to find the best people.
• Manual bidding is a good option. Native audiences can be used to adjust bids via observation mode.

You can also leverage your data to create audiences.

The following data is used by first-party data (FPD).

• Consent-driven emails/phone numbers/addresses (customer match).
• Site traffic/conversions are permitted only if the user consents.

FPD audiences are able to be used in the same way as native but allow for more targeted targeting. FPD audiences can be used to improve PMax campaigns by generating audience signals. This will help you create more similar audience signals for smart campaigns.

Both audience types are able to serve well in accounts.

Strategies to obtain first-party data audiences

Building trust with prospects is the key to first-party data audiences. If they feel that the company is trustworthy and offers value, users will consent to being tracked and communicated with.

Trust symbols such as reviews, awards, certifications and publications can be used to let people know your brand is worth their time. This helps us get consent to track our data, even though we are primarily focused on the audiences.

FPD is most easily obtained through pop-up offers. These are both viable in organic and paid campaigns. You should consider quality score and cumulative layout shifting (CLS). Both pop-ups must be delayed for at least five seconds. However, it is recommended that you wait for at least fifteen seconds.

There are three main strategies for collecting contact information (apart from lead generation)

• Offers for entry
• Exit Offers
• Valued member.

Entrance offers should be interesting without being irritating. You can do this by inviting the user to join your brand’s voice, or offering a discount.

You should use two-step offer module as a rule. You’re encouraging users to “say yes” one time and then have them continue to say yes. This encourages them to share information and eventually make a purchase.

The following results were achieved by this offer in Q3 2022

The pop-up has a decent engagement rate of 12.5% and a 27% conversion rate. It does a fantastic job at getting users to click “yes” and framing their discount code as “my”.

Use “my” instead “your” to cement the discount, as if the purchase is already the customer’s.

Although exit offers may not get as much engagement, they can still deliver powerful results. The creative should be genuine. The font should be simple to read and be focused on the offer that the user is leaving behind.

Although the engagement level was not as high as that of the entrance offer, it is worth noting that the conversions (sales), were significantly higher. Ask.

Valued member engagements are not always easy to design. They should be brand-friendly and let users know that they are getting something of value.

• Be the first to hear about new products and promotions.
• Newsletters that contain valuable information about the product/service

You must ensure that your messaging conforms to the privacy laws in your market. You will need to indicate in your creative that the sharing of an email will place the user on a mailing lists (which they will need permission to opt out from).

How to connect audiences with messaging

The power of ad creative depends on the matching between message and audience. No matter if your creative targets a specific demographic or can be used across all marketing channels, it is important that there is a connection between message and market.

This ad is so powerful because it makes privacy a point by covering the user’s faces and blocks out identifying features. It can be used by all user groups.

The key to crafting creative that is memorable is understanding the importance of visual content. All ad platforms focus on images and video.

Ad creative should be respectful of the channel and audience it is being used for.

If the user is unfamiliar with the brand (native audience, etc. Brand voice and building an emotional connection are more important than a transactional or functional approach.

It will be more beneficial for the user to use creative methods to overcome objections and data in order to justify impulse purchases.

Use data to create consent-based PPC audiences

The foundation of consent-based targeting depends on trust being established and maintained.

You can increase brand sentiment and ROI by using first-party audiences on ad platforms.

Watch: The guide to audience targeting with permission

Here is the entire video of my SMX Next presentation.

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