Top 10 Steps to Finding the Perfect Audience for your Social Media and Google Ads
Tags: socialmedia, socialmediamarketing, googleads, searchenginemarketing
Published: 2021-08-31 13:00:25

Determining your target audience; that’s advertising and marketing 1o1. Any business idea or product design starts with finding the audience. Are you thinking of launching a product? Who do you want to sell the product to? Finding the answer to that question is the starting point of a business that would eventually grow into a brand. On that note, I will be sharing some tips that would help you determine the target audience for online Google Ads and [social media marketing](https://hicentrik.com/social-media-marketing-strategy-new-trends-to-win-consumers/?utm_source=SEO&utm_medium=FreeGuestPost-dev).

**Understanding the Concept of Target Audience** 

A target audience is a group of people or consumers who would buy your product or services. When you create Ads online, it’s for them to view the same followed by taking action. Market research leads to the segregation of multiple demographics of users, analyzing which you can find your target audience. The usual categories are:
1. Gender
2. Age
3. Location
4. Education
5. Employment status
6. Income
7. Marital status
8. Hobbies

You can segregate more as per the nature of your product and the approach of your brand. 

**The Significance of Target Audience** 

Why is finding the right target audience so crucial? Let’s give you an example.

Business A and Business B; both food takeaways located opposite each other; both have been in business for two years now. A year ago, A and B started investing in digital marketing. They wanted to attract more customers. 

Months went by, and gradually B started racking in a significant profit, with a steady flow of online visitors to the website and more takeaway orders piling up on the counter; business was better than ever.     
Things were not the same for A. The website traffic was dwindling, and so was business. They even lost a few regular customers to the competitor across the street. 
So what was the reason? The food and service quality was likewise for both businesses; then what made people choose B over A. It’s because B targeted the right audience through its website and social media platforms, reaching out to the customers, existing and potential, creating valuable engagements. 
Business A stuck with a generic outlook in its social media and [search engine marketing](https://hicentrik.com/what-we-do/#seo?utm_source=SEO&utm_medium=FreeGuestPost-dev) efforts. But B was smart enough to target the people who were most likely to order takeout. It specifically targeted people who preferred takeaway instead of cooking, either due to lack of time or skills. The target audience comprised full-time corporate professionals, students staying in hostels and paying guests, working mothers, bachelors, and likewise. 
B hit the bulls-eye in business and marketing strategizing; no wonder they started multiplied their monthly turnover in months. There lies the significance of understanding and leveraging the target audience in enhancing the visibility of the business on search engines and social media platforms through strategic ads placement. But, how does one seek the right target audience?

**10 Tips to Finding Your Target Audience**

![Alt Text](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/d7c90166fec4aq6kx1c2.jpg)
Did you know that Google Ads increases the chance of a sale by 50% or that they increase brand awareness by 80%? Going by those numbers you can only imagine how much you can profit by investing in online ads, be it through search engines or on social media platforms. However, first, you need to find your target audience. Here are ten ways how you can do that:

**1. Market Research**
Nothing surpasses the value created through extensive research. It is your key to finding the right audience for your product. Create a questionnaire about your business, ideology, product, services, etc. 
The answers will give you immense insight regarding the target audience that you should seek through your products. Market research would also include studying the industry and competitors. 

**2. Create the Persona of your Ideal Consumer**
Creating a consumer persona is all about building the stats of an imaginary model consumer that will be perfect for your brand. It gives you an idea regarding the demographic of consumers you should focus on. 
The consumer persona is created by analyzing the data received from market research. Your consumer persona will include age, gender, location, income, marital status, etc. Once you get the basic idea, you can create ads keeping the model consumer in mind. 

**3. Study Market and Industry Trends**
What is a hit among consumers these days? Which product is attracting a lot of attention in the market? Does your brand or product meet those expectations? As mentioned before, market study and industry trends are as vital as consumer-focused research. It helps you create better products, along with social media and [search engine marketing](https://hicentrik.com/sem-vs-seo-fueling-up-your-digital-marketing-strategy-right-way/?utm_source=SEO&utm_medium=FreeGuestPost-dev) for the same, keeping the trends and competition in mind. 
 
**4. Competitor Analysis**
What is your competitor business doing to attract consumers? What demographics are they targeting? Does it clash with your strategies? What can you do to implement better marketing and advertising tactics? Analyzing the business and marketing patterns of your immediate business rivals can give you a gold mine of insight. 
If the business is doing well, you can understand the reason why, implementing better, if not, similar ways in your plan as well to target the right audience. 
 
**5. Google Analytics**
Speaking of Google Ads and search engine marketing, you must leverage Google Analytics to gain perception on different audience demographics. If you go through the website insight section, there are already segregations under gender, age, and location backed by graphs. Study those, to understand your audience better.

**6. Social Media Analytics**
What Google Analytics does for search engine advertising, Facebook Insights, Twitter Analytics, and likewise others do for your social media marketing ads. It gives insight into the kind of people visiting your business page, liking your posts, interacting with the same. It generates a detailed report on your ideal audience which even includes their purchasing patterns.  

**7. Define and Revise Your Target Audience**
The consumer mindset keeps evolving constantly. For instance, the target audience mindset across industries has undergone a massive shift amid the pandemic. Let’s give you an example. People who were once reluctant to buy online and preferred physical stores are now compelled to use ecommerce platforms, and they are finding convenience in the same. The moral of the story is; keep revising your idea of a target audience. 

**8. Social Media Engagement**
Social media platforms give you the chance to interact and engage with your audience directly, helping you understand what they want and what they are not that keen on. Keeping an active presence across platforms would help you get feedback directly from your potential target audience.
 
**9. Analyze website performance**
Google Analytics can take care of this. The performance of your website along with visitor data analysis also helps you identify and revise your immediate and accurate target audience.

**10. Conduct Polls and Surveys**
Polls through Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram, and market research surveys should be consistent. It’s not like you do it once and then just forget about it after gaining the data. It is a continuous process that helps you identify and understand your target audience better. 

**Conclusion**
Data from June 2020 shows that 18.3% of Facebook users and 11.1% of the users on Instagram bought products through [social media marketing ads](https://hicentrik.com/facts-digital-marketing-advertising-online-sales/?utm_source=SEO&utm_medium=FreeGuestPost-dev). That’s your target audience right there. If you can tap into the right demography and consumer intent, nothing can stop your brand from outshining the others. Remember the story of A and B that I shared in the beginning, you don’t want to end up like A right? So, what are you waiting for? You already got the handy tips; put them to use; determine and leverage your target audience through social media and search engine marketing; see your business grow.