Whilst remarketing focusses on audiences that are unknown, identity-based marketing is based on combining your customer email list with display advertising and social media networks, utilising three of the most powerful lead generating channels.

Google’s Customer Match and Facebook’s Custom Audience allows advertisers to upload an email list of your own customers, subscribers or users to Facebook or Google Ads. These emails are then cross-referenced with their database for targeted display ads. According to search experts Wordstream, matches can be around 50 percent for both platforms.

It’s an ideal way to engage with current or potential customers, boosting brand awareness and updating your audiences with the latest products and services.

Expanding reach with lookalikes

If you want to widen out your audience to more than your list, then you can generate what is known as a Lookalike Audience (Facebook) and Similar Audiences (Google Ads) from your custom audience.

This allows you to create a new list of potential customers that share similar interests and demographics. At Vitale we find lookalike campaigns to be one of the most effective ways to generate new leads. By using similar or lookalike campaigns, there is a potential to double your reach and target customers with similar characteristics, whether on Facebook, the Google Display Network, YouTube Ads and Gmail Ads.

Always place in context

If you spend much time on the net then you’ll have probably noticed how many blogs and websites have display adverts for related products. This is known as contextual advertising.

Google AdSense is the most successful platform for contextual advertising. It enables you to put dynamic content in front of people without them searching specifically for your product or service. You can place banner ads, images and video on related websites. As an example, if you’re selling a food mixer, it makes sense to have your ads on a recipe or food website. As the audience is already interested in cooking, they may be more responsive to clicking on your ad, leading to an increased click through rate (CTR).