Age and Gender PPC Targeting on Bing

by Samantha Noble on 25th August 2009

One of the advantages of Pay Per Click advertising on Bing is the age and gender demographic targeting.

The Microsoft adCenter has collected data overtime from various sources to create this targeting feature estimating the visitor’s gender and age:

• MSN Messenger
• Previous Search Queries
• Market Research
• Customer Service
• Registration Data from Hotmail

The results are obviously not 100% accurate but various studies in China show that the data collection and algorithms guessed the gender correct 80% of the time and the age of the visitor at least 60% of the time.

The Benefits

Gender

Various products and services that you as an advertiser may be offering, could be better suited to the male or female population. Knowing your target visitors gender allows you to target your ad text and landing pages accordingly.

Age

You can tailor your ad text and landing pages to suit a targeted age group. The system allows you to place incremental bids on each keyword for each age group which will help to limit the amount you spend each month on less targeted traffic.

The Age Groups

There are five different age groups within the Microsoft adCenter demographic targeting tool:

• 18 – 24
• 25 – 34
• 35 – 49
• 50 – 64
• 65 +

Place your Bids

Within each ad group you start with your base bid and then specify a percentage increase that you are willing to pay for each age or gender group. MSN will then automatically raise your bids to gain higher positions when a person within the selected age or gender group is searching for any of the keywords within the ad group.

The targeting can also be done at campaign level which is extremely useful if your target audience is the same for all products and services that you are promoting via your Pay Per Click campaign.

The thought process behind this tool, is that advertisers would be willing to pay more for a click if the searcher matches their target audience as they should in theory be more likely to convert.

When you apply incremental bids to an age group or gender, your ads will still be shown to all searchers but your bids are increased when the ads are displayed to your target audience.

A Quick Example

To explain how the tool works in a little more detail, I thought an example would help:

My website sells ladies lingerie and the bulk of my sales come from females aged between 25 and 50. The age and gender tool should help me drive more targeted traffic to the site but not exclude the other age groups or male customers.

My ad group base bid is £0.20 and I am willing to pay an extra 15% on top of this price per click for my targeted traffic.

This means that if a female searcher aged between 25 and 50 is searching online using one of my keywords, my bid price would increase to £0.23.

If the searcher was male and clicked on my ad my bid price would remain at £0.20.

How to set incremental bids in Microsoft adCenter

Campaign Level (sourced from Microsoft adCenter Help)

1. Click the Campaigns tab.
2. In the Campaign column, click the campaign whose targeting you want to change.
3. On the Campaign selected page, click Change settings.
4. Under Target your customers by location, click Edit.
5. Click Demographic.
6. For one or more of the gender and age groups, specify an incremental bid (A bid that can increase your ad’s exposure to potential customers who meet specific targeting criteria, such as day of the week, time of day, geographical location, age, or gender. A percentage of your keyword bid, the incremental bid is in addition to your bid on a keyword.) by selecting a value in the corresponding base bid + drop-down lists.
7. Click Apply.
8. Click Save.

Ad Group Level (Sourced from Microsoft adCenter Help)

1. Click the Campaigns tab.
2. In the Campaign column, click the campaign that includes the ad group you want to edit.
3. In the Ad group column, click the ad group whose targeting you want to change.
4. To the right of Ad group name, click Change settings.
5. Under Target your customers by location, click Edit.
6. Click Demographic.
7. Clear the Apply campaign settings check box.
   If this box is cleared, no campaign-level age or gender targeting will be applied to this ad group.
   If this box is missing, there is no campaign-level age or gender targeting.
8. For one or more of the gender and age groups, specify an incremental bid (A bid that can increase your ad’s exposure to potential customers who meet specific targeting criteria, such as day of the week, time of day, geographical location, age, or gender. A percentage of your keyword bid, the incremental bid is in addition to your bid on a keyword.) by selecting a value in the corresponding base bid + drop-down lists.
9. Click Apply, and then click Save.

Please refer to my previous blog post Pay Per Click on Bing: Campaign Setup for a comprehensive step by step guide.

Koozai specialise in Bing Pay Per Click Management on Google AdWords, Microsoft adCenter and Yahoo. If you would like us to explain how we can help you save on your monthly spend and increase your website conversion rate, please give us a call or complete our online contact request form.