Microsoft has been promoting their demographic targeting capabilities in AdCenter for well over a year now. They’ve produced a case study and a four step process to applying their demographic targeting.

Google came into the game late, but they also offer demographic bidding and reporting. But, how valuable is this new demographic bidding?

First, Google is being somewhat transparent, indicating in their official help files that demographic bidding is available on 32 sites - primarily of the social networking, dating site, and forum variety. The most notable sites include YouTube, MySpace, Friendster, HotorNot, and BlackPlanet.

So, what will you see when you download a demographic report if you are not bidding demographically? You will see age groups and genders of the people who are viewing your ads, the site where they saw your ad, and all the relevant detail down to conversions.

It is advised to carefully review your demographic report prior to doing any demographic bidding to determine where you can maximize opportunity, but also to see whom your ad may not be resonating with.

It has never been enough to go on gut instincts as to your target demographic.  Now, you have another way to integrate demographics while becoming a data-driven organization.

Filed under: Analytics, PPC on Friday, March 28th, 2008 by Jacob Wolfsheimer |
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