Custom audience targeting: your ads, shown only to the people who fit.
We build the audience first: your customer list, your website visitors, people who have been to a competitor, households that look like your best buyers. Then every ad you run goes to them.
- The audience comes first. The streaming service, website or app is just where they happen to be.
- $2,500 to $5,000 a month in media is where most campaigns start.
- It works on every screen: television, phone, computer and in their ears.
What custom audience targeting is
Most advertising is aimed at a place or a publication and hopes the right people are there. Audience targeting turns that around. You decide who should see the ad, and it finds them wherever they are watching, reading or listening.
A custom audience is one built for your business alone, from signals that say something about intent: where a phone has been, what a household has been looking at, and the customers you already have. It is sometimes called addressable advertising, because the ad is addressed to chosen households instead of broadcast to everyone.
It is the same idea as a custom audience on Facebook, with wider reach. A Facebook audience only works inside Facebook and Instagram. These run on streaming television, websites, apps and audio.
Not everyone in the metro. The people most likely to buy.
The audiences we build
- Your customer list
Your CRM or current client list becomes an audience, so the people who already know you see the next offer.
- Your website visitors
Someone who came to your site and left can be shown your ad afterwards, including a commercial on their television. This is retargeting.
- A competitor's visitors
A boundary around a rival's location reaches the phones that were physically there. This is competitor conquesting.
- People like your best customers
An audience modeled on the customers you already have, to reach new ones who resemble them.
- A place
A neighborhood, a venue or an event, reached while people are there and in the weeks after.
Where a custom audience can be reached
The audience is built once and used across every channel in the plan.
- Connected TV
- Programmatic display
- Digital audio
- Phones and tablets
- Computers
No customer data yet? We can start from location and behavior alone, and add your own list once you have one. A website, a CRM or a loyalty list is all it takes.
What it costs to start
$2,500 to $5,000a month in media is where most campaigns start.
A tight area, such as a few zip codes or one neighborhood, works at the low end. A whole metro, several markets or a statewide plan needs more.
Below that it can run. It just does not reach enough of the right people often enough to tell you whether it worked.
The audience decides who the media reaches, so it is planned before anything is bought.
Fewer people, better matched
The point of a custom audience is that less of the budget lands on people who were never going to buy. So the measure is not how many people saw the ad. It is what the people who saw it did next.
In past campaigns that has been store visits, counted by location, and online purchases, reported beside the impressions.
Store traffic for a pool and spa specialist
A pool and spa specialist with its own stores. 4 months.
A pool and spa specialist wanted more people in its stores. For four months we followed up with everyone who had visited its website, and reached people who had visited competing stores.
- Store visits
- 1,233
- Impressions
- 3,036,020
Copied from the case study we published at the time. The client's name is withheld. A past result is not a forecast: yours will depend on your market, your budget and your offer.
Read how it was run and counted
In another, a supplement company reached a new audience modeled on its existing customers and counted the purchases. See that one too.
It runs well behind a TV commercial
A custom audience is at its strongest on the television. Your customer list, your website visitors or a single neighborhood can decide which homes see your commercial.
See Connected TVSell it under your own brand
Your agency keeps the client and the margin. We plan it, buy it and run it, and the report carries your logo.
The white-label versionCustom Audience Targeting across Minnesota
26 Minnesota markets, each with its own local page. We run campaigns anywhere in the country.
Related services
Questions people ask
What people want to know before they start, answered the way we would answer on a call.
What is retargeting?
Showing your ad to people who have already visited your website or your location. They know who you are, so the ad is a reminder rather than an introduction. It can run as a banner, in audio or as a commercial on their television.
Is this the same as a Facebook custom audience?
The idea is the same and the reach is wider. A Facebook custom audience only works inside Facebook and Instagram. The audiences we build run on streaming television, websites, apps and audio.
How much does audience targeting cost?
Most campaigns start at $2,500 to $5,000 a month in media. The audience decides who that media reaches, which is why it is planned first.
What is addressable advertising?
Advertising addressed to chosen households rather than broadcast to everyone watching. A custom audience is how the households are chosen.
What data actually builds these audiences?
GPS location history, behavioral signals and, where you have it, your own first-party customer data — combined to build a list of the people most likely to actually buy, not just anyone who fits a broad demographic.
Can you target people who visited a competitor?
Yes — that's competitor conquesting. We build a virtual boundary around a rival's location and reach the devices that were physically there.
What if I don't have my own customer data yet?
We can start from location and behavioral targeting alone and layer in first-party data once you have it — a website, a CRM or a loyalty list are all we need to onboard it.
Tell us the area and the budget. We will show you the plan.
Tell us your goals. We'll show you the plan — and the numbers behind it.