Use keyword targeting to get more visitors to your web site
In our last blog post, we talked about using the Custom Report feature to see how many visitors you were attracting to your web sites. Today, we'll talk about the Targeting Options to help you get more visitors. We'll also talk about how to use targeting to narrow or expand the audience you are reaching with your ads.
What is Targeting?
So what is Targeting, anyways? It's a fancy marketing term we use to identify which prospects you want your ad to be shown to. By using different types of targeting, you reach a different audience. When it comes to advertising, audience is everything -- you want to reach potential paying customers and new visitors. That's your audience!
In the LookSmart AdCenter, you can reach different prospects in several ways. In this blog post, we're going to focus on visitors who are using web search on LookSmart's network of partner sites.
When you target your ads to display on web search results pages, we say you are using Sponsored Search. Customers are looking for something when they search -- maybe they're looking for the product or service you offer on your web site.
Using Targeting Options to Expand or Narrow Your Audience
Sponsored Search can be targeted in a few ways. In the text below, we'll use a ficticious ad for a site called MP3 Reviews (see Figure 1 below) to illustrate our examples.
- Broad Match
Broad Match is the most common way to reach your prospects through Sponsored Search. You'll use this option to get access to the broadest audience possible.
Let's say you've got a web site called MP3Reviews.example.com and you want to reach all visitors searching for mp3 players. Using Broad Match, you can add the keyword "mp3 player" to your campaign, and any visitor searching for "mp3 player", "flash mp3 players", and "80 gigabyte mp3 players" may see your ad.
We call this Broad Match because you only have to choose a few words, like "mp3 player", and this will broadly match any Search.com visitor using those words in any combination. It's a great way to get access to a big audience quickly.
- Negative Match
Negative Match is used in combination with Broad Match. So-called "negative keywords" narrow your audience by filtering out visitors who use certain keywords in their searches. This helps refine your targeting by limiting the scope of how broadly your ad is shown.
In our example, let's say we want to reach Search.com visitors who are looking for "portable media players" (see Figure 2). But portable media players could include prospects searching for antique 8-track players or simple cassette players.
To refine the audience of your advertisement, add negative keywords like "cassette" or "8-track". Now, a visitor might search for "portable digital media players" and see your advertisement, but they will not see your ad if they search for "8-track media players".
- Smart Match
Smart Match is the most refined of all targeting, and the most restrictive. When you bid on a keyword like "mp3 players" with Smart Match, you'll reach only those visitors who search for that term exactly, plus a view minor variations. A visitor searching on Search.com for "mp3 player" or "mp3 players" would see your advertisement, but a visitor using "portable mp3 player" would not.
Yes, that was a mouth full. There's a lot to learn about targeting, and we've just skimmed the surface. Here are few tips to guide you. We'll also go deeper into this subject in our next few blog posts.
Use Broad Match keyword targeting to increase the number of visitors to your site.
Use Negative Match keywords to refine (reduce) the number of visitors coming from your Broad Match keywords.
Use Smart Match keywords to be extremely precise in your targeting.
Use LookSmart's keyword suggestion tools to get ideas for as many terms as you can.
We welcome your comments and your feedback. LookSmart's customer service is available by e-mail and toll-free by telephone at 877-512-LOOK, so give us a call if you need help figuring out how to get the most of your advertising dollars.
Allen Hammock
Product Marketing Manager
allen.hammock@looksmart.net
Figure 1: Review Targeting
Figure 2: Add Targeting
