How Marketers Can Use Audience Segmentation to Achieve Rich ROI

BY Rachel Cagle
Featured image for “How Marketers Can Use Audience Segmentation to Achieve Rich ROI”

Guaranteeing an ad’s effectiveness begins with making sure your client’s ads get in front of the right audience. After all, you and your client created the ad to target a very specific consumer group, right? Audience segmentation is the key to getting the results your client expects from their ads.

How Marketers Can Use Audience Segmentation to Achieve Rich ROI

What is Audience Segmentation?

According to Mailchimp, audience segmentation is “a marketing strategy based on identifying subgroups within the target audience in order to deliver more tailored messaging and build stronger connections.” Subgroups can be based on demographics, behavior, psychographics and more.

Segmentation Starts with Data

Obviously to start identifying subgroups within your client’s target audience, you need data on them. Luckily, the more consumers interact with your client, the more breadcrumbs they leave to follow and build profiles on.

Some of the most popular methods marketers use to capture data, according to a study by Salesforce, include:

  • Customer service data: 88% of marketers use this data collection method
  • Transaction data: 82%
  • Mobile apps: 82%
  • Web registration/​account creation: 82%
  • Loyalty programs: 80%
  • Subscriptions (like newsletters): 75%

And of course, there’s AudienceSCAN on AdMall by SalesFuel. Using this tool, you can look up your client’s target audience’s profile to learn:

  • Demographic information (e.g., gender, age, average household income, etc.)
  • Purchase intentions for the upcoming year
  • Personal interests
  • Favorite things (e.g., TV/​movie and music genres, sports, etc.)
  • Marketing information (e.g. which types of ads influenced them to take action within the last year)

All these sources of information can help you and your client identify subgroups within their target audience. Once you have those, you can start practicing audience segmentation among your client’s ads.

Personalization

Knowing who is among your client’s target audience’s subgroups and their wants and needs is invaluable to personalization. But first, you need to use the data you collected to know where to place the targeted ads.

Salesforce says that marketers engage with customers across an average of 10 channels. They usually include:

  • Social media: 93% of marketers utilize this marketing channel
  • Their own websites and apps: 91%
  • Digital ads: 90%
  • Email marketing: 90%
  • Digital content: 87%

With your audience segmentation research, you’ll know exactly which of these (or other) ad platforms to focus on. Remember, your client shouldn’t follow the herd, they should go where their potential customers want to be interacted with.

Your client also shouldn’t stop with one-​off personalized ads. Salesforce recommends taking a lifecycle approach to personalization and connecting with consumers every step of the way.

How can you and your client possibly accomplish that in a time- and cost-​effective way? The answer is AI.

AI and Personalization

AI can work wonders with both individual and audience segmentation-​based marketing efforts. For example:

  • Individuals: Say a consumer starts shopping on your client’s website but then abandons their shopping cart. AI can flag this information to send an email ad reminding them of what was left behind. Plus, it could include a coupon for one of the items to encourage them to complete their purchase.
  • Audience Segments: Marketers everywhere have begun using AI for content creation, optimization and data collection. You can ask AI to perform research on your client’s audience subgroups. This information provides a way to see what they’re currently interested in and responding to. Plus, it can even write up a first draft of a related ad.

AI can help you and your client quickly and easily put your audience segmentation data into action.

Conclusion

The data doesn’t lie. Once you’ve identified subgroups within your client’s target audience, it becomes even easier to create ads. You can help craft ads that are relevant and motivating to them. Get started on your client’s audience segmentation journey watch their ad ROI shoot up.

Photo by: Nicholas Green

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