In-Market Audience Targeting

The "95:5 Rule" in #marketing presents a heuristic that, irrespective of the market category, at any point, only about 5% of the Total Addressable Market (TAM) is actively looking to make a purchase either from you or your competitors. This small segment is referred to as the "In-Market" buyers. Conversely, the vast majority, 95%, are "Out-of-Market" potential #buyers. These individuals may already have a preference for a brand long before they are ready to buy, but are currently unable to proceed with purchasing due to their personal circumstances which could include budget constraints, being abroad, or not having convinced key decision-makers. This insight challenges the common belief that #marketingeffectiveness is solely about persuading customers to move through a sales funnel. In reality, the primary factor that transitions a customer from being Out-of-Market to In-Market is their personal circumstances, not marketing strategies. Consequently, marketing efforts cannot significantly increase the percentage of In-Market buyers within a category either; it almost always remains around 5%, barring seasonal variations. Given this constraint, the strategic question for marketers becomes how to generate more sales without being able to increase the 5% TAM threshold? The answer lies in capturing a greater share of pie of this In-Market segment. Say move from capturing 0.5% of that pie to 2% of that pie. Even though 5% of a TAM might seem small, in a category with 100 million potential buyers over five years, this translates to 5 million active buyers right now. The competition among brands is for the largest share of these buyers, with the market leader typically securing a substantial portion. To increase market share within this 5%, two primary strategies are suggested: Mental Availability: Engaging potential buyers with memorable, branded #advertising well before they are ready to purchase increases the likelihood of them preferring your brand when they become In-Market. This strategy relies on building #brand recognition and preference early in the customer journey. Essentially, the goal of your marketing is to make your brand salient before the customer is ready to buy. Physical Availability: Ensuring your brand is easily accessible and purchasable at the moment the 5% are ready to buy is crucial. By this stage, most have already decided on a brand, doing very little research. They are more focused on ease of purchase rather than exploring options. Having a seamless user experience and being present on the right channels can significantly impact conversion rates, as potential buyers are likely to default to their next preference in the face of any obstacles. When you understand the 95:5 Rule, you better understand customer purchasing dynamics as well as why it is vital to investing in reaching the 95%.

Halved our Meta audience window. ROAS jumped 43%. Our CPIR doubled while acquisition dropped 26%. We were targeting completely wrong. We discovered the invisible killer: Our audience definition. We'd been targeting website visitors from the last 180 days, thinking more data meant better targeting. Instead, it created a fatal flaw in our acquisition strategy. 👉🏻Our Cost Per Thousand Incremental Reach had doubled in 3 months 👉🏻We were paying premium prices to reach the same people repeatedly 👉🏻Meta was showing our ads to people who had already purchased The moment we changed our audience definition, everything shifted: ↗️CPMs dropped by 37% ↗️New customer acquisition increased 2.4X ↗️Actual ROAS (when measured against NEW customers only) improved dramatically This matters even more with Meta's push toward Advantage+. As platforms remove manual controls, your audience definitions become your last defense against inefficient spending. Three critical changes we implemented: Matched audience windows to actual buying cycles → For most products, it's 14-30 days, not 180 Created proper exclusions for existing customers → Excluded ALL purchasers from prospecting audiences → Excluded recent website visitors from awareness campaigns → Built separate retention campaigns with unique messaging Implemented monthly CPIR tracking (Cost Per Incremental Reach) → When it spikes above baseline, audience strategy needs immediate revision → This single metric predicted audience fatigue better than any other With Advantage+ campaigns removing more targeting controls, defining your audiences correctly has never been more important. Otherwise, you're just paying to reach the same people who weren't buying from you the first five times they saw your ad. What's your approach to audience windows? Have you tested shorter timeframes against the default 180 days?

Market PRODUCTS to in-market buyers. Market BRANDS to out-market buyers. Why? Let’s start with some well-studied facts. But first, let’s align on two definitions… 🎮 Product: A product has features, capabilities, use cases, benefits, and desired outcomes, all of which may differ from one segment to the next. 🏠 Brand: A brand (this version) is a house of products and their respective target segments—all of them. When buyers sit out-market, they care less about the rational value of your product(s) like features, capabilities, use cases, outcomes, pricing, or benefits. Why? Effort. Humans don’t expend mental energy if we don’t have to, so we don’t labor over decisions we don’t have to make either. When buyers move in-market, however, things change: we tax our cognitive load in search of fit, value, pricing, and expected outcomes. Why? Risk mitigation. Nobody wants to make a poor decision that costs them money, credibility or their job. So we ask our friends, read reviews, explore case studies, scour website copy, download PDFs, include a committee, and talk to sales. That means product marketing content like product/solution pages, persona pages, case studies, reviews, comparisons, sales enablement, and pricing is mostly relevant to in-market buyers, NOT out-market buyers. Hence the “FAST LANE”: product marketing is best at reducing friction in the buying process, converting demand, and accelerating adoption. But since out-market buyers don’t take deliberate action to understand the full circumference of your product’s value until they move in-market, don’t try to dump it on them. They’ll rarely listen. If they do, they’ll rarely remember: rational product information decays in the mind fast. Instead, you need to market the BRAND to out-market buyers. Remember: a brand is a collection of products and their respective segments. That doesn’t mean concoct a pie-in-the-sky, vision-driven investor pitch and blast it across your homepage and socials. It means market the universal value of all your products across all your segments in a way that’s distinct, cognitively light, and memorable. Not all things to all people… Universal: inclusive of all the segments you sell to today. For example: → Core associations that all segments need to know, not some  → Shared beliefs that all segments resonate with, not some → POVs that all segments relate to, not some  → Narratives that encompass all segments, not some Reduce complexity with universal relevance. Then wrap those universal messages in an emotive vessel so out-market buyers can easily engage with them and remember them. The goal: to sear long-term associations into the minds of future buyers so they remember and consider you when they move in-market. Hence the “SLOW LANE”: brand marketing drives future sales and revenue—a lot of it. **** If you want to full break down of the diagram below by Obaid Durrani and Drew Spencer Leahy 🥜 , comment below!

Amazon dropped one of the biggest Sponsored Products updates we’ve seen in a long time (and personally was waiting for): ->audience targeting inside SP and the ability to create custom ones with AMC. Most advertisers are going to butcher this. They’ll pile audience bid boosts on top of existing ranking structures, placement modifiers, legacy bids — and then wonder why their campaigns nosedive. That’s how you torch your signals and bleed efficiency. Here’s the approach — the same structure we’re running across multiple brands: 1. Build your audiences inside AMC. This is the only place you’ll get truly clean data. Do not be lazy and use the ones you have available by default, they are mid to upper funnel audiences (which might work if that is what you wanna go after). But now you have access to AMC, so no excuse not to customize the audience based on your target. How to: Go to your ad console -> measurement and reports ->AMC → Use Cases → Audiences → pick the behaviour (ATC, PDP views, click-no-purchase, etc.) → create to Audience Hub. 2. Do not slap audience modifiers onto existing campaigns. If a campaign has a purpose — ranking, defence, etc — stacking audiences on top of it just corrupts the whole bidding logic. And if you’re already using placement modifiers, mixing them with audience modifiers is a guaranteed mess. 3. Create a separate SP campaign built only for the audience. Low base bid - start with half of the lowest suggested. Attach the AMC audience. Modifier applies only to that audience (at least 100% and increase this as needed). This isolates the traffic, preserves signal quality, and gives you a clean testing lane. The outcome across every brand using this structure has been identical: higher conversion rate, lower CPC, better margin. Same budget — just higher-quality traffic. The rule is straightforward: pick the audience that aligns with your objective. Don’t target everything. Fix the biggest gap in your funnel first. I’ve mapped out every audience, organized them by funnel stage, and included recommended starting points. Comment ME and share this post, and I’ll send you the file. #amazonad #amazonadvertising

I am surprised by how few brands are using Amazon's Custom Audiences at meaningful scale within the AMC clean room today. AMC Audiences are SUPER important as they are the best mechanism for moving from insight to engagement, and ultimately driving ROI from the valuable raw data within the clean room. Remember that AMC has up to 12.5 months of data at user, impression and conversion level. It can also be enriched with your own 1P data and commerce signals! For any advertiser who has reached a point of maturity with their analyses on top of AMC, the logical next step is to get 4-5 always-on audiences running via AMC that will deliver value, efficiency and performance to you across the Amazon sales funnel. From a tech perspective audiences work very similarly to analytical queries in AMC. You can write SQL code to query the log data and produce a table, but in the case of an audience this is automatically synced to Amazon DSP for use in targeting. You can find your AMC Custom Audiences under "Advertisers" --> "Audiences" --> "Custom Built" and utilise them for targeting and suppression tactics. Below are some practical examples of how Custom Audiences could and shouuld be used at each stage of the commerce customer journey... 🤌 Acquisition: Segment users searching for the non-brand keywords you are bidding on within your product category, but who have not bought your product on Amazon within the last x days. 🏰 Conquesting: Build audiences of users who have generated x Detail Page Views (DPVs) on your brand in the last y days, have also searched specific competitor brands within your category, but have not yet purchased your product. 💶 Consideration --> Conversion: Have always on segments running which sync lists to ADSP of consumers who have added your products to cart, but have not purchased within x days. 🛒 Cross-Sell: Audiences derived from prior Amazon conversions, such as all users who have purchased your brand in product category A, but not in product category B. 🙅 Suppression: Sync your O&O commerce signals from e.g. Shopify into AMC to then create suppression segments of all users who have purchased from your own ecom store in the last x days to avoid wasting media budgets on consumers who already buy from you directly. These are just scratching the surface of the potential for #AMC Audiences and all of the above are tactics we deploy for customers via LiveRamp's #cleanroom product via our Amazon Marketing Cloud integration! How are you using AMC Custom Audiences? Want to discuss further hit me up or leave a comment. #ecommerce #amcaudiences #datacleanrooms #analytics

How Brand Consideration is Driving Results for Year-End Campaigns As year-end sales events approach, many brands are looking for ways to overcome growth challenges, reach the right audiences, and drive meaningful results. With the speed of trends and consumer decisions on TikTok, tapping into the right strategies can make all the difference. One approach that’s been gaining traction is Brand Consideration, which focuses on reaching high-intent audiences at critical moments in the marketing funnel. These are users who are already showing interest and engagement, making them more likely to convert. By expanding this audience pool, brands can lay the foundation for stronger results not just during peak sales moments but throughout the entire campaign cycle. 💡Why It Works Consideration audiences are valuable because their behavior—searching, engaging, or showing interest—signals clear intent. Targeting this group early helps brands build awareness, establish connections, and ultimately drive conversions when it matters most. For example, starting consideration campaigns a few weeks before Black Friday has shown to improve ROAS significantly by priming audiences during their decision-making process. By the time the key sales day arrives, those users are more likely to act. 📈Real Results in Action A beauty brand used Brand Consideration to boost interest in their secondary products, achieving a +15% click-through rate and growing their reach by 110%, while their top products hit record sales on peak days. A home appliance brand leveraged TikTok’s insights to refine their targeting strategy, leading to a +21% increase in store visits and a 6.8% lift in conversion rates during Black Friday. These examples highlight how focusing on consideration audiences can help brands not only reach more people but also connect with the right people—those already primed to take action. As we gear up for the busiest time of the year, it’s exciting to see how these strategies are helping brands and communities thrive on TikTok. #TikTok #TikTokforbusiness #Brandmarketing

The most underrated element in your B2B paid campaigns is your audience targeting. It's the foundation of every successful campaign — and it's the cheat code to driving higher quality leads. Instead of wasting hours creating more & more ad creative and ad copy, first ask yourself if you've maximized every possible audience available. My R.I.T.E Audience Framework helps break this down: 1️⃣ (R) Retargeting Audiences This is your warmest audience set. Max out this audience as much as possible by leveraging all available audiences based on a 30, 60, or 90-day timeframe including: All website visitors All pricing, demo, trial & case study visits All single-image ad interactions All 25-97% video viewers All company page visitors All document ad interactions All conversation ad opens All past event attendees All lead gen form opens (exclude lead gen form submissions though) All meeting no-shows & qualified leads that went dark without taking a meeting All closed lost contacts 2️⃣ (I) ICP Audiences These are your cold audiences filtered by industry, geography, and job titles to find your ideal customer profile. Spend some good time here. To help zero-in on the best ICP criteria, export a list of contacts from your CRM from your best-fit customers. Make a list of decision makers, champions, and influencers to define which job titles should see which specific ads. I encourage you to work with your sales team to refine this to avoid wasting ad spend on bad titles that will be disqualified later. Review this ~1x a month. There's tons of other data sources you can upload & layer on native criteria to. Here's just a few examples: Cold audiences from your current tech stack (CRM, MAP, Zoominfo, Apollo) Intent Audiences (G2, Bombora, CommonRoom, 6Sense) Website visitor contacts (RB2B, Warmly, Qualified) Technographic Audiences (Metamatch, Aberdeen, BuiltWith) Job Change Audiences (UserGems, LinkedIn Sales Nav) Funding Change Audiences (CrunchBase, KeyPlay) 3️⃣ (T) Target Account Audiences These are specific accounts you want to target. Don't sleep on this audience. Put your sales team on speed dial for this one so you can all align on the right-to-win accounts to target with ads. Layer on as much relevant filter criteria to target the right personas at these accounts. Review this ~1-2 months with your sales team. 4️⃣ (E) Exclusion Audiences Think of this as your "anti-buyer" persona. Exclude anyone you don’t want to waste ad spend on. Make it a habit to review your campaign's demographic reports to make sure you're not burning money on irrelevant audiences. Here's a few audiences I highly recommend excluding: Thank you & career website page visits All lead gen form submits Your company All existing customers All competitors & partners Poor fit job titles or functions (proactively add here based on disqualified lead feedback from your sales team) Poor fit industries Irrelevant company sizes Disqualified leads Target smarter, not harder. 🚀

I just audited a $3M e-commerce company’s ad account. Found 26% of “conversions” in their NEW customer campaign came from existing customers - nearly $30,000 worth of budget competing against themselves. Also found their P-Max campaign spending almost $20,000 on products already running in shopping campaigns. Pure audience overlap making their algorithm stupid. This happens because most advertisers obsess over keywords and bidding strategies but completely miss the biggest lever for ad efficiency: ↳ Controlling WHO sees your ads. Here's the audience targeting framework that destroys keyword competition: Step 1: PREVENT OVERLAP Most campaigns let new customers, retargeting audiences, and existing buyers all trigger the same ad groups. Our fix: Apply your customer list to each campaign, then set bid adjustments down 90%. This prevents existing customers from spending in new customer campaigns. Step 2: SEPARATE ROAS TARGETS ▪ Existing Customers: 600% ROAS target Why: They've already converted. Extremely high likelihood to purchase again. ▪ New Visitors: 400% ROAS target Why: Unknown conversion potential requires tighter efficiency targets. ▪ Retargeting Audiences: 250-280% ROAS target Why: Retargeting generates partial conversions - worth accepting lower ROAS. Step 3: ENABLE ALL AUDIENCES This account has 700+ audience segments available. They're only using 26 of them - all set to observation mode - collecting data but making zero bid adjustments. Even at 95% impression share and 3.87x ROAS, they're leaving efficiency on the table. Our fix: Enable ALL audiences in observation mode and use the data to target valuable audience segments that have previously been overlooked. Step 4: PRECISE RETARGETING Add another precision layer with time-based retargeting: 7-day, 14-day, 30-day, and 90-day segments each deserve different bidding strategies based on recency patterns. Step 5: SCALE AD SPEND Properly segmented campaigns get MORE efficient as you scale budget, not less. When properly implemented, you should be able to add a zero to your daily budget without changing efficiency metrics. That's how you know the system operates at maximum market capacity. THE TAKEAWAY This account was already operating at a 7.5/10—better than 95% of what I audit. But precision targeting makes the difference between hitting a ceiling and breaking through it. Stop fighting the keyword auction. Control the audience auction instead.

🎇 Check out the New York Times’ fancy new ad targeting toolkit—they’re going big on behavior and emotion. Is this the beginning of a way for publishers to take back some of the power that they've lost to ad platforms? When I talk to companies about target audiences, most of the descriptions I hear are demographic. A lot of marketers describe their audiences by gender, age, geography and other factors that are easily targeted but not particularly distinctive. A better method of targeting uses a combination of behavior, interests, and emotion to identify the most productive audiences. The result, especially when paired with tests of positioning and messaging, is almost always better customer acquisition economics. Targeting beyond mere demographics is hard—there is often an algorithmic black box in the way—but it’s a powerful way to understand which of several audiences needs a product the most. Ad platforms give us interests and keywords to shape audiences, but there is rarely much (overt) opportunity to target emotions and behaviors. So it’s almost staggering to see the New York Times putting behavior, interests, and emotion front and center as the media company unveils a new targeting model. “More than 240 audience segments are now available to advertisers around interest in specific topics such as luxury fashions, with a focus on the emotions that content might elicit such as optimism or hope, as well as gender and age.” Wow. Apparently the NYT is also using attention as an input—a key behavioral indicator. (My hunch is that other ad platforms use attention as well, but they just don’t talk about it.) I can’t wait to see 2025 ad revenue stats for the NYT. Will a more powerful targeting platform attract more dollars? Can the NYT charge more for better results? And what happens next—could the NYT share its tech with other publishers to create a targeting network that skims off high-end audiences? https://lnkd.in/ew2JTiuj