There’s an old saying in marketing: Everyone is not your audience. In other words, you don’t want to spend money trying to get your product or brand in front of every single human on the face of the planet; that would likely be quite wasteful and unnecessary. What you want to do is to get the product or brand in front of the people that will have interest—your target consumer.

Why Segmenting Matters

But how does this impact your marketing strategy on a practical, actionable level? For PPC advertising, it means you need to segment. You want to tweak your ad settings to ensure you’re only paying for the ads to be seen by the people who matter most to you.

An obvious example: If you’re advertising a store with a very concentrated regional presence in Charlotte, North Carolina, you probably want to segment your audience to ensure the ads only show to people in that area; paying for the ad to be displayed in California is going to be a waste of resources.

When Segmenting Falls Short

The problem that some marketers face is that they are working with a product that does not so easily lend itself to segmenting, either with demographic filters or with keywords. Your audience may be defined by something a bit more esoteric than geography, gender, industry, or interests.

In these cases, the ad copywriting itself has to do the heavy lifting—and because you’re working with a limited word count, it’s all the more important to write an ad that’s both persuasive but also qualifying. This will allow you to entice your desired consumers while being overlooked by those who are not a good fit.

How Copywriting Can Pick Up the Slack

For an example, look no further than to enCOMPASS. A big part of what we do here is developing, designing, and supporting superior, internationally award-winning websites. They’re not like what everyone else is doing. They are superior websites built to perform for our clients, and command the price that reflects their high value. We price them fairly, which means, basically, that what we do is not for everyone.

The challenge is that, in the world of search, we still need to bid on the more general, more competitive keywords, like “website design companies.” When we’re bidding on those kinds of keywords, we have to develop ad copy that encourages our target customers to click through while discouraging others. That’s how we ensure our ads are most effective.

So how is that done? Something as simple as “professional websites starting at $10k” can do the trick. If you’re not in the market to make this level of investment on a website, you know right away to move on and look for a lower cost, basic website. But for our desired customers, ad copy like this is almost like a code: It conveys the value and prestige that come with our websites. It suggests that what we’re doing is indeed high-end.

Ad segmenting is important—but it’s about more than just keywording. Lean, precise copywriting can help make your ad all the more attractive to the right audience, and thus a better investment in your brand.

Thinking about how PPC can drive more results for your business? The first step is simple, reach out to us. We’re always happy to have a conversation about taking your website and marketing efforts to the next level.