This post was most recently updated on August 23rd, 2019
Finding your target audience is one of the very best things you can do to optimize your revenue. After all, not all traffic is equally valuable. A visitor who drops by your site and immediately bounces away isn’t a very valuable visitor at all.
Similarly, some demographics are simply worth more money than others, because ad buyers are willing to pay more money to reach those visitors. It’s simple economics. Once you have a firm grasp on your target audience, you’ll be able to develop a more coherent strategy for increasing your AdSense revenue.
But before you can hone in on your target audience, you need to figure out what your current audience looks like. Sounds like a job for Google Analytics!
Drill down into Google Analytics
Did you know that Google Analytics offers you insight into the types of people who visit your site? You can find this information in the Demographics and Interests sections of custom reports.
Google creates anonymous profiles of every user who visits your site based on their search history and other viewing histories. If you look at their interest profiles, you’ll be able to get a glimpse into what precisely makes your users tick.
Need help analyzing this information?
Ask yourself these questions:
- “What are these types of people interested in?”
- “What are they likely looking for when they visit my site?”
- “Are they able to find what they’re looking for? If not, why not?”
- “Are there any related demographics of interest profiles I can target?”
These and any other number of similar questions can help you take an honest look at your website’s current audience compared to the audience you want to attract.
Consider revamping your content
Once you’ve ascertained what your target audience is, take a good, hard look at your copy. Your copy aligned to meet these demographic goals? Is it something to the people in your target audience would enjoy? Cheers of their friends? Or is there a mismatch there?
Please know that this doesn’t mean you have to throw everything away. It just means you need to pick your content strategy to seek your target audience. Research what people in your target audience like to read. What are they sharing with their friends?
This is with things like Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ can come in handy. A bit of research using these tools can give you all sorts of interesting glimpses into the things that pique your target audience members’ interests.
And finally, keep tabs on your changing demographics. If you devise a strategy to tweak your target audience, then you should hold yourself and your team accountable to those goals. Otherwise, you’ll just be floating downstream without a paddle.
Injuring synchronicity between the content on your site and the demographics that you’re charging is one of the best ways to optimize your traffic, receive the highest CPMs (as ad buyers are more willing to pay for ads that cater to certain demographics), and increase your overall revenue. Just make sure you do it the right way.
Kean Graham is the CEO and founder of MonetizeMore & a pioneer in the Adtech Industry. He is the resident expert in Ad Optimization, covering areas like Adsense Optimization,GAM Management, and third-party ad network partnerships. Kean believes in the supremacy of direct publisher deals and holistic optimization as keys to effective and consistent ad revenue increases.