You may have heard of demographic bidding, but what is it? In a word, demographic bidding allows you to specify a particular age group or gender for your ads. If you sell feminine products, for instance, you don’t want to market them toward men so why not use demographic bidding to narrow the audience to which you target your ads? You can take advantage of demographic bidding in two ways, through keyword-targeted and through placement-targeted campaigns.
Keyword-targeted ads will appear on content network websites based on the keywords that you choose. For example, you might choose “feminine hygiene” as your keyword phrase. Your ad shouldn’t appear on content network sites that are targeted toward a male audience.
Placement-targeted allows you to select specific sites that you want to see your ads appear on. For instance, if you want your ad to appear on a specific website geared toward women and you know that website allows ads from the content network then you can tell Google AdWords to show your ads on that website. This allows you to tap into the target market that you know exists on that niche website.
To take advantage of demographic bidding you simply add a % of your bid for a particular demographic group that you want to bid on. So if you want to target your ad toward the 50+ age group then you’d enter your bid (let’s say, $1.50) for your keyword then add a percentage (let’s say 100%) that you are willing to pay extra in order to capture that target market. Whenever your ads appear for that target market then you’ll pay up to $3 per click instead of $1.50 for the non-targeted keyword clicks.
Keep in mind that these ads will only be shown on sites where demographic information is tracked. If a website doesn’t have stats on their users then it won’t apply. But many websites do track demographic information so this could help you.
