With your company visit data in Google Analytics, itโ€™s possible to take a behavior and quality approach to building audiences and re-targeting. Leading to less wasted expenditure targeting visitors from bad-fit companies. Plus, higher conversions through more relevant ad copy! ๐Ÿš€

So how do you get started?

๐Ÿ‘‰ Set up - you will need to have Google Analytics connected.

๐Ÿ‘‰ Strategy (at the bottom)

How to create an ad audience in Universal Analytics

Sign in to your GA account, head over to 'Customization', drop down the menu, and follow the steps below.

  1. Create a new segment

  2. Advanced - conditions

  3. Add filters for your target audience (ICP) using custom dimensions

  4. Save the segment

  5. Segment dropdown - select Build Audience

  6. Select the Audience definitions

  7. Select the Audience destination

๐ŸŽฏ Deciding on an advertising strategy using company data.

There is a multitude of tactics that can be employed within a re-targeting strategy. The optimal mix will depend on a few factors.

  • How your target audience and content are segmented
    Do you have one main target audience bucket containing a few industries and company sizes within a single buyer's journey?

    Or do you have distinct buckets/segments within your target audience and the content to provide multiple buyer journeys to each segment?

  • How much target audience website traffic do you have?
    Re-targeting on Google requires varying minimum audience sizes depending on if youโ€™d like to target on Search or Display.

    For instance, if you have a relatively low volume of target company traffic, it might be wise to make a master re-targeting audience pool that can be used immediately. While beginning to collect data in segmented (additional) audiences that can be used when you hit the required minimum size.

  • Do you have the resources to create multiple audience segments plus the associated ad copy and content assets?
    Will Segmenting your audience make ads more relevant? Or is it more of a one size fits all type of offer?

  • Current cold advertising and campaign strategy

๐Ÿ—๏ธ Okay, enough of the questions; let's put it all together.

Based on the above, you will hopefully have a clear idea of how many buckets/groups/segments your target audience is comprised of. Plus, the number of content assets you have to support each segment.

From here, you can make a decision on the number of groups and create the relevant Segments in Google Analytics. For example:

๐Ÿ’ป Tech Segment

โš–๏ธ Legal Segment

Industries

IT + Software

Law + Legal Practices

Company sizes

200 - 5000

500 - 2000

Location

US, Canada

Europe

๐Ÿ”ฌ Now, letโ€™s add in some behavioral metrics.

Here are two examples.

๐Ÿ‘‰ A target visitor belonging to one of the segments finds your website via a blog article and then checks out 2 of your product pages.

๐Ÿ‘‰ Whereas a different visitor comes directly to the website and spends 15 minutes on 3 case studies.

Both are within your target audience, yet in very different stages of the buyer's journey. As such, there is a higher likelihood of click-throughs and conversions with different ad types (and landing pages) that relate to their stage.

Just as you segment your target audience, it makes sense to split your buyer's journey into a few stages.

Here are some of the behavioral metrics you can play around with:

  • Number of page views

  • Time on site

  • Page viewed / time on page

  • Visit source (campaign, channel, ad content)

  • Video plays

  • Downloads (with visitor tracking, this doesnโ€™t need to be gated)

Copy the Company based audiences you created and add the relevant behavioral filters for each.

Remember to keep the audience sizes in mind as you go.

Decide on the ad content you would like to serve each segment (which will now be relevant to the company type or segment they are in and the actions they took on your website or the source of the visit), and donโ€™t forget to send them through to Google Ads.

Ready, steady, spaghetti ๐Ÿ , and you now have intent-based ideal company profile re-targeting.

Wow, that was a bit of a mouthful! Let us know how it goes; we are really excited about the possibilities and seeing clients generate some incredible results ๐Ÿ’ช

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