Capterra Glossary
Targeted Ad (Targeted Advertising)
A targeted ad (advertisement) is an advertisement that is designed to target a specific demographic of people. Targeted ads are chosen according to their relevance to a website’s contents, assuming that the advertisements will also prove relevant to the website’s users. There are various types of targeted advertising techniques—such as contextual advertising and even device advertising—which target people based on the websites they visit, or geotargeting which targets audiences based on their geographical location. Other forms of targeted advertising include social media targeting (targets users based on their behaviors on social media platforms) and retargeting (targets individuals by showing them ads based off of the websites they have previously visited).
What Small and Midsize Businesses Need to Know About Targeted Ad (Targeted Advertising)
Small and midsize businesses most commonly use targeted advertising on social media to connect relevant audiences to their product and service offerings. Placing targeted ads on social media platforms, such as Instagram or Facebook, can be an optimal targeted advertising technique for smaller organizations due to its low cost; not to mention it also allows businesses to be highly selective with the audience they wish to target. These platforms often offer small organizations the tools they need to target specific audience demographics. For instance, Facebook Lookalike Audiences is a powerful marketing tool, designed by Facebook, that allows businesses to use their collected customer data to create custom audience groups. Facebook Lookalike Audiences then targets ads to other Facebook users who share the same characteristics or behaviors of the custom audience groups the business has created.