Adwords Demographics Targeting Progress Report
February 28th, 2008 Posted in Facebook, Google AdwordsA few weeks ago, I commented on the new Demographics Targeting features Adwords introduced as a beta. I pitted males versus females in a conversion test based on two polar opposite image ads. Letting the ads run for one whole week resulted in a substantial amount of impressions and clicks, and the results themselves may surprise you!
I carried out my test in Facebook using image ads that targeted two groups: adult males and adult females. One image was characteristically chauvinistic and was targeted specifically to males, applying premium bids for that gender demographic, whereas the other ad was a polar opposite targeted to females.
In the first week, both ads accumulated several million impressions and several hundred clicks. In the second week, I removed the demographic restrictions on both ads, so that both ads competed against each other equally amongst both genders.
Who did the clicking?
In the first week, the demographics targeting worked it’s magic and results were what you would expect. The male targeted ad generated both male and unspecified clicks, with very little female clicks. I’m assuming the female clicks on the male targeted ad were introduced with some margin for error. The female targeted ads generally resulted in both female and unspecified clicks, with an insignificant amount of male clicks. No surprise there.
In the second week, however, I measured some interesting results. The male targeted ad with a scantily clad model generated a lot of male clicks, but more than double the amount of female clicks! Not only were there more females that clicked that ad, but female click through rates for the chauvinistic ad was also significantly higher.
What does this mean?
My wife advised me to say, “nothing,” so I will note that here.
Clearly, there are a number of factors at play here. I’m happy to have had the chance to test out demographics targeting, and I will say there is a time and place to run targeted ads to different genders. However, demographics targeting opens up several additional dimensions and variables into testing that can be daunting. In addition, search engine metrics from even the most demographics-rich sites such as Facebook can be incomplete.
Conclusion
Yes, demographics targeting is cool. Yes, Google Adwords has done it right. Yes, you can go wild with the different options on a placement targeted campaign with demographics targeting enabled. No, you don’t necessarily need it. No, it’s not perfect, but with time it will improve. Will I keep using it? Definitely.
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