Ad Targeting With Consumer Privacy In Mind
Google Ads is a powerhouse in the digital advertising industry, and its constant evolution to best serve clients and consumers has driven the development of advanced targeting methods to effectively reach the right audiences. As advertisers in the digital world, we have come to rely on demographic data to influence our audience segmentation. However, consumers are growing increasingly concerned with data privacy and discriminatory advertising as technology advances and more specific, personal information can be tracked online.
Google, among other major tech companies, has recently revised their privacy policies, which significantly impacts many advertisers’ audience targeting strategies on these platforms. So - what does increased data privacy really mean, and how can advertisers get their messages to the right audiences without violating these new policies?
Google’s Advertising Policy
At the start of 2020, the Google privacy policy focused on preventing businesses in the employment, housing, and credit industries from targeting users based on identity. These policies have been in effect for several years, preventing advertisers from discriminating against certain groups based on:
Race
Ethnicity
Nationality
Gender
Sexuality
Disability
Religion
Recent legal issues surrounding Facebook’s targeting practices used to advertise housing to specific groups, coupled with the growing awareness of how social injustices historically impacted people’s ability to receive equal employment, housing, and credit opportunities despite the prevention of bias against specific identities, have led to Google’s reconsideration of how to better protect users against discriminatory advertising. As a result, Google will no longer allow employment, housing, and credit businesses to target users based on:
Age
Gender
Marital Status
Parental Status
Zip code
Finding an Audience Solution
What do these changes really mean for businesses in the employment, housing, and credit industries? If you’re a restaurant owner targeting audiences by zip code to drive foot traffic, not much. However, if you’re a property management company targeting audiences by zip code for your apartment complex, that’s a different story.
Losing the ability to target by demographic segmentation can significantly impact businesses in these industries, particularly in terms of age groups and zip code. These policy changes affect the “Detailed Demographic” audience solution. However, the “Affinity Audience” and “In-Market Audience” solutions are based on user interest in a given topic, through online browsing activity and past searches. To help your business pivot from a demographic (and geographic) focused targeting strategy to a psychographic and behavioral focused alternative, identify the audiences your ads currently target and use Google’s machine learning to build on these lists.
Understanding Google’s Audience Solutions
If you’re not familiar with the differences between Google Ads’ Audience Solutions, here’s a quick breakdown:
Detailed Demographics: Reach your audience based on their lifestyle, such as parental, homeownership, education, or marital status.
Affinity Audiences: Reach your audience based on qualified interests in a given topic, learned through online activities such as videos viewed or websites visited.
In-Market Audiences: Reach your audience based on readiness to purchase your products and services, or users in the mindset to buy, not just browse.
Additionally, your business’ data can support these Google Audience Solutions through Remarketing, Customer Match, and Similar Audiences for more thorough targeting.
If you are not already targeting Affinity and In-Market Audiences, Google Ads can suggest relevant ideas based on the products or services your business offers. If you are trying to pivot your targeting strategy away from demographics towards user interests, these suggestions can help broaden or narrow your audience. Including Affinity Audiences will widen your ads’ reach to users with a general interest in your industry, while In-Market Audiences will narrow the reach to users conducting specific searches in your industry for products and services, with the intent to convert. Depending on your primary campaign goals, budget, and available customer data, Google Audience Solutions can still provide your business with an in-depth targeting strategy without the use of certain demographic data, allowing you to reach the right audiences without contributing to consumer privacy concerns.