Streaming TV is the new Television. 9Now attracts valuable audiences that are engaged and have the disposable income to buy your product or service. But your product or service may not be relevant to all 9Now viewers. At Nine we know how important it is to reach the right audiences. Narrowing who you reach by selecting which audiences you put your message in front of based on their interests, life stage or household proximity will drive greater connections and results from your marketing activity.
One of the benefits streaming has over traditional TV is the ability to target specific audiences. You no longer need to serve your ad to everyone. Instead, you can target your ad to only the audiences you want to reach. Applying targeting means you can reach and connect with the audiences to whom your product or service will be most relevant, ensuring you meet your KPIs and advertising objectives. By choosing the targeting you want to apply, you can reduce waste so that your dollars go further.
Nine Ad Manager gives you a wide variety of targeting options including device, household location, demographics, interests and behaviours, TV show and genre – all in a privacy-first way. With so many options available, how do you choose the right targeting for your campaign? This article gives you some helpful best practices for successful campaign targeting.
Less can be more
Firstly, an important consideration for marketers is how much targeting to apply to your campaign. At Nine we think targeting is a bit like salt on your meal. A little bit can really enhance your campaign, but too much can be detrimental. Layering on more targeting than you really need can limit the audience reach and may prevent your ads from being seen by a greater pool of potential customers.
For example, if you have a specific audience of households you wish to reach in a certain geographic area, then layering on additional targeting like TV show or content genre could unnecessarily limit your reach of households in the local area of your business. As a best practice, we recommend erring on the side of broader reach rather than going too narrow, and applying only the most necessary targeting parameters to avoid shrinking your potential audience pool.
Remember, if you don’t apply targeting then your campaign will still serve across 9Now. In the absence of any targeting selection your campaign will simply serve across all TV shows, content genres, devices, and to all audiences on the platform.
Device targeting
With device targeting you can target your ads only to desktop, mobile and tablet apps or connected TVs. Different devices have different characteristics and create different viewing experiences. For example, web and app are one-to-one where there is usually only one person in front of the screen. As the main screen in the living room, connected TVs by comparison are one-to-many where on average there is 1.5 people in front of the screen at any one time, as measured by OzTAM. The majority of 9Now viewing takes place on a connected TV, making up approximately 76% of 9Now’s audience. All household location, demographics, interests and behaviours, show and genre targeting options are available across any device.
Household location targeting
With household location targeting you can reach households in the local area of your businesses. When people sign up to 9Now and create an account we ask them to share their postcode with us, amongst other things. Nine Ad Manager has grouped audiences together into different household location targeting cohorts using this declared postcode information, which you can choose to target depending on your campaign objectives. These include targeting of households in individual postcodes, capital cities and districts, regional areas or states. We recommend using only one of these geographic targeting options on your campaign.
Demographic targeting
When viewers sign up to 9Now we also ask them to tell us their year of birth and gender. Using these attributes, we can target your campaign to males and females and/or to viewers in particular age bands. If you select an Age: 25-54 and gender: Female, your ad will only serve to female 9Now account holders who are aged 25-54.
Interests and Behaviours
Nine collects information on the interests and behaviours of our audience based on their content consumption on 9Now and across the rest of Nine’s digital network, including The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Brisbane Times, WA Today, Australian Financial Review, nine.com.au , 2GB, 3AW, 6BC, 6PR, Pedestrian Group, Domain and Drive. If you intend to apply interest and behavioural targeting, we recommend you select more than one parameter to keep your targeting broad. For example, if you are a furniture retailer, selecting both the “Furniture Buyers” and “Movers” audiences will ensure you reach 9Now viewers who either have a high propensity to buy furniture in the near future or who are moving house (which is also usually a trigger for furniture purchases).
Content targeting
TV show and genre targeting helps you align your business with specific Australian content. For example, you could target your ads only to live NRL and NRLW games to reach rugby league fans and tap into the passion of live sport. Or you could use genre targeting to target family content to put your message in front of families. If you apply content targeting in combination with demographic, household location or interests and behaviours targeting, your ad will only serve to audiences watching that content who also fit that particular life stage, interest or geographic profile. Therefore, we would recommend using broad profile targeting if you are also applying content targeting.
A/B testing
If you are unsure about how to reach your audience and what targeting to apply, you could consider A/B testing to learn which audiences will be most receptive to your message. A/B testing involves splitting your budget between two campaigns, setting one campaign up to target one audience and another campaign up with exactly the same criteria but selecting another target audience. You can then compare which campaign has delivered the highest number of visits to your website, actions on your website, or sales. This information can be used to better understand the audiences your advertising is connecting with and inform future campaign targeting approaches.