1For more information:

OregonianMediaGroup.com | 866-576-1048 | advertise@oregonian.com

THE SECRET TO HIGH-PERFORMING DIGITAL CAMPAIGNSA Guide to Audience TargetingOregonian Media Group | 2015

1

IN THIS REPORTA lot of factors can influence the success of your digital advertising:

the images you use, your call to action, the placement on the page.

But none of those can save a campaign if the right audience isn’t seeing it.

Well-targeted ads make it easier to reach your best prospects and most

valuable customers, wherever they are online. Smart targeting can turn

around an underperforming campaign, while generating a higher ROI

for every dollar invested.

This report provides an easy-to-follow introduction to Audience

Targeting and explains how your business can use it most effectively.

It’s the perfect primer for any marketer, media planner or

C-Suite executive who wants to achieve more

with their digital campaigns.

CONTENTS2 Audience Targeting: A Definition

4 How Audience Targeting Works

6 3 Steps to Building a Targeted Campaign

9 About Oregonian Media Group

2

AUDIENCE TARGETING: A DEFINITION

At some point in your life, you’ve probably played the game 20 Questions. If not,

it goes something like this: one person thinks of an object, but doesn’t tell anyone

else what it is. You have to figure it out by asking yes or no questions, and you only

get 20 chances. For example:

Is it blue?

Can I carry it on my back?

Will it explode if I put it in the microwave?

The more detailed and creative your questions, the greater chance you have of

guessing correctly before your 20 questions run out.

Finding a likely customer online is a lot like playing 20 questions. You have limited

time and resources, and a million possibilities, but you have to reach the particular

audience that has a need for your products or services.

If you’re selling deck installations, your questions might sound like this: Are you interested in home improvement? How often do you shop online? Are you planning on building a backyard deck this year?

And that, in a nutshell, is Audience Targeting.

With Audience Targeting, this kind of filtering helps determine who will see your

digital ads – and it happens in a blink. How you target your message depends

on your product or service, your ideal audience and your goals, and there are

countless ways to segment an audience. Let’s quickly review a few of the big ones.

“FINDING A CUSTOMER ONLINE IS A LOT LIKE PLAYING 20 QUESTIONS.”Target by Interests

If you know what topics interest your audience, it makes sense to place ads next to

similar content online. On large sites, that can be literally hundreds of site sections

and pages on a range of topics.

Unfortunately, this is the point where many businesses stop. Just buying loads of

impressions in targeted content is like asking three of your 20 questions and giving

up.

3

Target by Behavior

Most websites capture a wealth of data about actions people take while they’re

poking around – like pages visited, videos watched or devices used. When you

combine that information with third-party data (reliable data from an outside

source), a clearer picture of your audience starts to take shape.

From there you can segment your audience based on those past behaviors. You

can pinpoint the behaviors that are important to you, and then serve your ads to

only those visitors.

And find it to be an effective marketing strategy. In fact, 7 in 10 advertisers plan to increase their audience-targeting budgets by an average of 38%.

eXelate / Digiday, State of the Industry survey, March 2014.

Target by Demographics

The term demographics refers to statistical information about a particular group of

people: age, sex, education, income, employment status and more. Demographic

marketing is nothing new, but in the age of “Big Data” more information is available

than ever before.

You’ll need to zero in on the data that best represents your target audience. For

instance, you probably wouldn’t market baby shoes to Baby Boomers.

Target by Location

Location, location, location. For smaller local businesses, especially, targeting the right

location is critical. A tree-trimming service in downtown Portland, Oregon shouldn’t

waste its budget on homeowners in sunny Reno.

And in the mobile age, it’s increasingly important for every business to reach

audiences wherever they are. With geo-targeting, you can serve specific mobile ads

based on a person’s location – 50% off coffee inside, sale happening here – in real-time.

OF ADVERTISERS USE AUDIENCE TARGETING

80%

4

Target with Re-messaging

Technology has made it possible to see where consumers have been online and

what they’ve clicked. If that sounds creepy, don’t worry – that data is anonymous.

You can see what’s happening, not the specific person who’s doing it.

But it does allow you to do something smart called “re-messaging.” When someone

visits your website or sees your ad, you can show that person another message

later, in a different location or on another site, to stay top of mind.

You don’t have to do this all yourself, of course. There are professionals who

can help match your goals to the right content, the right data and the right ad

networks. Next, we’ll look at how Audience Targeting makes all this happen.

HOW AUDIENCE TARGETING WORKSThe better you understand audience targeting – and your audience – the more

creative you can be in reaching them. And the better you can evaluate what’s

working and why.

Audience targeting has two basic parts: first-party data and third-party data.

First-Party Data

First-party data is any information a company can capture about their customers’

interests and behaviors, often using cookies. That might include:

· The web pages they visit most

· How long they spent reading a page

· Content they’ve shared or commented on

· Site features they use

· Ads they’ve clicked on (or even looked at)

· How long they stayed on a site

· What mobile device they use

· How they interact with your apps

· Content they download

· Contact information they’ve shared

· Products purchased, and more

It works like this: Great content attracts lots of visitors. More visitors produce more

data. More data means more insights you can use to reach your audience with your

targeted marketing and advertising messages.

5

Third-Party Data

Third-party data is information that is licensed or

purchased from a reputable outside source – one that doesn’t

have a relationship with your customers. That could be:

· Demographic information on a wide range of audiences

· Data on consumers’ behaviors and interests

· Purchase history from retailers

· Ready-made audience segments

The key word here is: reputable (like Nielsen or comScore, for example). In other

words, companies that have processes in place to validate the accuracy of data.

“GREAT CONTENT ATTRACTS VISITORS. VISITORS PRODUCE DATA. MORE DATA MEANS MORE INSIGHTS.”

6

How They Work Together

Long before first-party data was widely available, direct marketers were using

third-party data with some great results. Today, businesses tend to prefer first-

party data – it’s timely and reliable. But these two really need each other to

perform their best.

Nothing gives you a closer look at how customers interact with you now than fresh

first-party data. Yet that view can also be too narrow. For instance:

What are they doing away from your site, and what does that say about them? What if you want to reach new and different audiences?

Enter third-party data. Besides giving you a more nuanced view of customers and

their motivations, it helps identify markets you haven’t tapped yet. Put these two in

a room, and watch the sparks fly.

Now that you’ve had a peek behind the curtain, we’ll talk about how to reach your

best customers.

3 STEPS TO BUILDING A TARGETED CAMPAIGNAudience targeting can open plenty of doors, once you know what it is and how it

works. The question is whether you’re opening the right doors, enough of them, or

too many to execute a successful campaign.

While there’s no single strategy that works for every campaign (every advertiser

and goal is different), the following three steps provide reliable, consistent results

for most.

1. Start with Geography

Location should be your first consideration. Geo-targeting is obviously important

for budgeting limited ad dollars: you want to spend where your customers are

(or are most likely to be). It’s important to do it first because it’s the quickest and

easiest way to narrow your potential audience.

When targeting by geography, there are two basic approaches:

· IP address targeting, which targets the current ZIP code of a particular

device

· Geo-content targeting, which targets the geography a user most often

reads about

A person who lives in Beaverton, Oregon and works in Portland may fall under both

geo-audiences, and it’s appropriate to target using both methods.

In fact, the best approach is usually to combine the two. That way, you’ll find your

target audience at work, at home and at play on whatever device they’re using to

connect to the internet.

7

2. Next, Target by Behavior & Interests

What is the audience’s intent? What are they interested in? This factor will always

trump more generic demographics when it comes to zeroing in on the right

audience.

The real power of behavior and interest targeting lies in how people use the

internet. We don’t give up much information about who we are (demographics)

as we browse the web – but the sites we visit, the ads we click and the content we

consume speak volumes about what we’re interested in and what we’re shopping

for right now.

For example, let’s say you’re selling a luxury sedan. It’s good to know how many in

your audience are financially able to afford it (demographic targeting). It’s better to know which ones have recently read about the latest Lexus and searched for the

Audi A6 in auto listings (the behavioral targeting method).

3. Last, Filter with Demographics

This is where you can further shape your audience, if needed. You’ve found an

interested group in the right location, but your aim could still be too wide of the

mark. Or there may be too many members in the audience to effectively reach

them all.

At this point, targeting by demographics like gender or income can help fine-tune

your focus.

Many in the audience, no matter how interested, will simply lack the means to make

a purchase. Maybe certain demographic segments haven’t historically shown a

tendency to buy. All good things to know so that you only target impressions to

those that are most likely to want your product or service.

This isn’t a foolproof formula – no formula ever is. Like all marketing and

advertising, you should take three more steps: test, measure and adjust.

OregonianMediaGroup.comSEARCH | DISPLAY | MOBILE | SOCIAL | CONTENT

TO FIND THE RIGHT AUDIENCE ONLINE,

YOU NEED THE RIGHT SUPPORT

OFFLINE.

BREAK THROUGH

ABOUT OREGONIAN MEDIA GROUP

As the region’s leading media group, we help businesses

reach the right audience wherever they are through digital,

print, search, social and content marketing. Our certified

experts provide strategic, creative and technical support at

every step to help advertisers develop the most effective

campaigns possible.

Oregonian Media Group publishes OregonLive.com, the

leading news and information website in Oregon and

Southwest Washington, and The Oregonian, the Pulitzer

Prize-winning newspaper.

For more information:

Visit OregonianMediaGroup.com

Call 866-701-4418

Email advertise@oregonian.com

9