What is Targeted Advertising and Why Do Affiliates Need It?

 

You’ve probably had the feeling more than once that social media is following you. Every time you look at posts in your feed, you see ads for products or services that you may have searched for earlier on Google or Bing. Why does this happen? It’s not about conspiracy theories, but rather the fact that advertisers set up their campaigns correctly to show ads to those who are interested in their products. We are here to tell you what is targeted advertising, what benefits you can get from targeting as an affiliate and how you can apply it working in different niches including iGaming.

 

What Is Targeted Advertising in Affiliate Marketing

If you turn a blind eye to the challenges associated with collecting and processing some user information, then targeted advertising is a very powerful tool for every marketer including those who work with online casino affiliate programs. As we know, target means goal and this clearly explains the essence of targeted advertising. Focused exclusively on the specific audience, it gives you the opportunity to show ads only to people interested in what you offer.

 

So, targeted advertising is a tool that allows you to create and customize advertising campaigns based on the specified characteristics of the target audience. You can use many different criteria including location, age, gender, income level, and behavioural traits. As a relatively inexpensive method, targeting has proven to be a very effective tool for promoting products and services on the Internet. Because it allows you to show your ads to only a certain portion of the audience, targeting can reduce your advertising costs.

 

How Does Targeted Advertising Work?

So, now that you know what is targeted advertising, it’s time to understand how it works. Remarkably, as a targeted advertising affiliate marketing expert, you will be able to find out all the necessary information about people. When opening a profile on a social media platform such as Facebook, a person fills out a questionnaire with information such as date of birth, gender, country and city, and other things. As they interact with the social platform, users also reveal some other data characterizing their behavioral traits.

 

Thus, the social platform aggregates data about subscribers, pages visited, posts viewed, likes, location tags, and others. This continues throughout the lifecycle of a social media user. For example, if you frequently visit your social profile from different locations, the platform will infer that you like to travel, and the smart algorithm will take this feature into account when selecting ads to show you. The key advantage of targeted advertising is that it works in favour of two parties. On the one hand, business owners get potential customers with minimal social media advertising costs. On the other hand, users get content that is really interesting and useful to them.

 

To better understand how targeting works, let’s look at an example from the iGaming affiliate program. Jacob scrolled through his Facebook feed for 15 minutes. During this time, the social platform showed him several different ads including information about a new site with colourful fruit online slots, a group with expert sports betting predictions, discounts on sushi sets at a nearby restaurant, trips to a ski resort in St. Moritz, and courses on investing in digital assets. Although almost all of these ads are of different themes, they were shown with Jacob’s social media activity patterns in mind, as he prefers to bet on sports and play casino games, has ordered sushi through an online service, has been on vacation recently, and wants to diversify his investment portfolio.

 

So, let’s take a closer look at the types of user data collected by a special algorithm of social platforms:

• Demographic information. This includes a person’s nationality, age, gender, income level and occupation. This data is a priority for creating targeted ads aimed at a certain part of the audience.
• Behavioral characteristics. This is a set of data about purchases made by the user recently. For example, if you purchased a smartphone in an online store, you are likely to see ads offering various accessories such as cases, screen protectors and other things relevant to your purchase.
• Geographic data. Social media can also collect information about where you live and places you’ve visited recently. With this information, marketers can customize campaigns to show relevant ads to people who have been to certain locations.
• Psychographic data. This data set provides insights into your beliefs, life values, lifestyle, and other things that can be inferred from your activity on a social platform. For example, thanks to the collected psychographic information, a marketer working with a casino affiliate program will never show ads for iGaming platforms to those who have a bad attitude towards gambling.
• Temporal data. If you have a birthday coming up, you are likely to see ads with discounts in various online stores where you are a registered user.
• Technical data. Social platforms may also collect data about the type of devices you use. For example, if you have an iPhone, you will only be offered apps available for download from the App Store, Apple’s app marketplace.

 

By combining the data above, you can fine-tune your marketing campaigns to show ads only to people who are potentially interested in the products you are promoting.

 

Targeted Advertising Benefits

Considering all of the above, targeted advertising opens up a wide range of opportunities for every marketer, regardless of the niche in which they work. So, let’s take a look at the targeted advertising benefits that will not leave you indifferent:

• The ability to connect with the right audience really interested in what you are promoting. For example, by working with a casino affiliate program, you can reach gambling enthusiasts significantly increasing the chances of attracting new players to the promoted iGaming platform.
• Enhanced personalization. Today’s internet users are spoiled and demanding in terms of content. Knowing almost everything about your audience, you will be able to send personalized messages instead of faceless ads that many are bored with.
• Quick results. Most marketing strategies, such as SEO for example, take quite a long time to get the desired results. With targeted advertising, you can get customers almost instantly.
• Lower cost and higher ROI. Costing less than other marketing channels, targeted advertising provides higher conversion rates resulting in greater revenue.
• High probability of repeat conversions. Once users click on a link from an ad and get what they want, they are more likely to return to the promoted site again.
• Analytics. Modern advertising platforms give you access to real-time analytics so you can quickly make changes to your campaigns.

 

Thanks to the benefits above, targeted advertising is still one of the best marketing tools. Whether you are a gambling affiliate or a marketer promoting clothing brands, you can capitalize on this cost-effective form of advertising.

 

Platforms for Targeted Advertising

Today, there are many social media sites offering advanced tools for creating targeted advertising campaigns. Below, we have listed the options most in demand among affiliate marketers:

• Facebook. Being the social platform reaching the largest audience, it boasts active users where you can easily find potential customers. If you’re ready to position yourself as an expert in your niche and invest time and money in advertising, Facebook may be the best choice for you.
• Instagram. Designed for visual content fans, Instagram reaches a large audience where the majority of it is people between the ages of 18-35. It is a great option for marketers promoting products suitable primarily for upper-middle-income women.
• Twitter. An ideal option for image building and upselling, this social platform (now known as X) is becoming increasingly attractive to marketers thanks to the new owner’s policies.
• YouTube. As a video hosting and the number two search engine in the world, YouTube can be both a source of additional traffic and a full-fledged medium to promote products and services.

 

In addition to the above, you can also look at LinkedIn, TikTok and some other social platforms. When choosing a platform for targeted advertising, you need to give preference to the one where your target audience is the most active. In addition, consider factors such as your marketing objective, available ad formats, pricing, requirements, restrictions and possible penalties.