Those in the know will be aware that household income targeting has been available in AdWords for some time now, first launching back in November 2013. The feature allows you to target specific income tiers and is currently available in the US, and has more recently become available in Australia, Brazil, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, South Korea, Singapore and Thailand.
Currently there’s no set release date for the UK, but with continued updates to the AdWords interface, we predict it will only be a matter of time.
Targeting options
In the previous version of the AdWords interface, this feature was a tricky one to find, with the user having to negotiate their way through a maze of various tabs and dropdowns, eventually leading them to locations by demographics tab.
However, with the new AdWords interface, things are a lot easier, and it can now be found in the demographics tab, along with a new charts feature that clearly shows the performance for the following income tiers.
- Lower 50%
- 41-50%
- 31-40%
- 21-30%
- 11-20%
- Top 10%
- Unknown
How to implement bid modifiers
The new interface allows you to apply bid modifiers to all of the tiers at ad group-level. Previously this was only available at campaign-level, so the new release allows you to go even more granular with your bids.
To implement this simply go to ‘Modify Columns’, followed by ‘Attributes’, then select ‘Bid adj.’ This will then allow you to apply positive or negative percentage adjustments based on performance for each of the tiers.
The new charts are also a nifty feature that allows you to get an instant snapshot of performance. From this, you can push tiers that are working well with a positive increase to the bid modifier, as well as pulling back on bids or completely excluding them with a 100% bid for tiers that might not be working well for you.
Tried and tested
Croud has been rigorously testing the targeting for a luxury retail client, applying positive bid modifiers to the top 10% tier, with some excellent results across our US campaigns. In the first month, we were pleased to see increases in average order value for the top 10% tier, which is now 101% higher than the account average.
This insight has allowed us to continue to push the top 10% bid modifiers with cost per acquisition (CPA) well below target. We have also been able to pull back on lower converting tiers, allowing us to maximise available budgets with record-breaking revenues recorded for the US campaigns.
Recommendations
Household income targeting is a great feature to review and optimise, especially if you’re targeting the US, Australia, Brazil, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, South Korea, Singapore or Thailand with your PPC campaigns. At Croud we’ve experienced great results across the multiple clients that we’ve tested this on – it’s got our seal of approval.
The recent AdWords interface updates to the ‘Household Income’ feature suggest this is something Google is investing in that could be rolled out across more countries in the near future – so make sure you are ready!
If you’d like to find out more about household income targeting, or would like to speak to a member of the team, contact us!
