Author Archives: Ioannis Koutrakos

Audience Insights Series: A framework for success

This is our final post in a series exploring the value of audience insights in search marketing. Over the past few weeks, we heard from experts and leaders in the industry on the opportunity, predictions, and insights on the topic. With our final post today, we would like to explore the path to success when applying audience insights in your own campaigns.


Additional insights about your audience, such as location, time of day, and how they’ve engaged with you in the past, can help you better understand the intent of your audience so you can serve the most relevant message.

But more information can also mean more complexity. So to help you effectively navigate and leverage audience insights in your campaigns, we’ve developed a 3-step framework for success: Gather, Target, Engage. The infographic below captures the steps in more detail, along with case studies of advertisers who have applied them to their campaigns.

Click here to download the infographic
1. Gather insights that matter: This step is about identifying relevant signals to leverage in your campaigns, which is essential for developing insights on who the audience is, what context they are in, as well as what their interests may be. Here are some examples of the types of signals you can identify:

Who: The user’s relationship with you, including whether they have previously visited your site or made a purchase
What: Time, location and device used
Interests: Interests in specific categories based on consumed content

2. Target based on discovered insights: The next step is to combine these signals, and based on them, create segments you can target. Below are examples of segments you can create if you were selling laptops:


“Close to store”, based on device and location signals.
“Android users” may be more inclined to purchase a Chromebook.
“Interested in bags”: If a user has bought a laptop through your website, he might now need a laptop case rather than a laptop.


3. Engage your audience with a tailored ad: This final step is about delivering your audience a tailored message. Messaging can be optimized for each segment with A/B testing. By measuring results post-engagement, you can reassess if there are new signals to gather, ultimately coming back to the first step in the cycle.


Advertiser success with Audience-driven planning
Specsavers is a good example of an advertiser who applied this framework, matching their ad copy with location-specific segments. The strategy helped drive a 189% increase in their key metric - conversions. To find out more, you can see other case studies in the infographic or explore previous posts in our series. You can also hear about upcoming developments in your inbox, by signing up for our newsletter.

    Audience Insights Series: Getting started

    Over the past couple of weeks, we heard from experts and leaders in the industry on the opportunity of applying audience insights to their search marketing efforts, and predictions on how this trend will impact the industry moving forward.


    This week, we’re diving deeper and sharing best practices and first steps advertisers can take to make the most of the audience opportunity.


    When we sat down with Ben Wood from iProspect, Khurram Hamid of GlaxoSmithKline and Steve Chester from the IAB UK, we heard a resounding message: Don’t hesitate, start today. The sooner advertisers start testing and experimenting with applying audience targeting in their search campaigns, the sooner they’ll tap into valuable insights  to tailor their campaigns for their audience.

    As one expert said, “Today, because it’s nascent, it’s those brands right at the cutting edge that are really leaning into this... but in 6 month’s time, in 12 month’s time.. this isn’t something you can’t be doing.” 

    And as a first step, we heard how investing in a data management strategy is key. Watch the video for more:


    This will be our last post featuring perspectives from industry leaders, but the journey doesn’t stop here. With our next post in the series, we’ll explore specifics around how advertisers can approach planning their search marketing strategy with a focus on leveraging audience insights. Stay tuned!

    Audience Insights Series: What the future holds

    This is the second post in our series to explore the convergence of audience data and search marketing. In our last post, we heard from industry leaders on the opportunity and how audience data helps them  deliver even more relevant and resonant messages.

    This week, we explore what the future holds.  iProspect’s Ben Wood, Havas Media’s Paul Frampton and the IAB’s Steve Chester share perspectives on the continued convergence of audience data and search marketing, implications for digital marketing teams and how they work together, as well as how audience data in search will help bridge the gap between branding and direct response.  






    Look for our next post in the series, where we will explore best practices for advertisers who are looking to embrace audience data as part of their search marketing efforts.

    Measure the true ROI of AdWords Remarketing Lists for Search Ads

    We are happy to announce support for AdWords Remarketing Lists for Search Ads (RLSA) in DoubleClick Search. If you are a DoubleClick Search customer, you can now manage and report on your RLSA campaigns directly in our platform. Further, you can now report on the ROI performance of each individual remarketing list, regardless of how they spread across different campaigns and ad groups.

    With this new capability, we’ve made it much easier for advertisers to measure the effectiveness of each remarketing list and their list strategies overall. Up to now, advertisers using RLSA through Adwords have had to duplicate and complicate their ad groups, in order to understand each remarketing list’s value. We are excited to see advertisers enhancing their search marketing campaigns by embracing audience signals, and below we’re shining a light on how customers are improving their results with RLSA:

    "Within the remarketing campaigns, renewal customer target groups showed a 89% higher ROI than acquisition customers. Also, 90% of the target group customers turned out to be customers that renewed their contract"  
    - Irina Stutvoet, eCRM Marketing Manager, T-Mobile Netherlands

    "When AdWords launched RLSA, it offered us a new opportunity to engage with our customers. Now with the addition of conversion reporting in DoubleClick Search, we can finally measure and realize the true ROI of RLSA. Across our agency portfolio we have seen RLSA campaigns improve conversion rates by 70% and CPA of 53% on average compared to non-RLSA campaigns”  
    - Matt Wright, Head of Paid Search, iProspect Manchester

    As we continue our investments in our audience capabilities, we work closely with our partners to understand what they’re looking for.

    With that in mind, over the next three weeks we’ll be hosting a series on the topic of the role of audience signals in search engine management. We’ll share perspectives from organizations like iProspect, Havas Media, and the Internet Advertising Bureau on what the opportunity is, how audience signals will impact search marketing and how marketers can get started.

    We hope you enjoy the forthcoming series on audience signals in search engine management!

    Audience Insights Series: What is the opportunity?

    As part of our series exploring the value of audience signals in search marketing, we went behind the scenes at leading agencies and marketers and asked industry experts to share their views on what the opportunity is.


    Here’s what we heard: According to these industry leaders, audience insights enable advertisers to go beyond simple keywords and use other signals to inform their search marketing. They can make smarter bidding decisions, but more than that, advertisers can improve the message  they’re presenting   to their audience, making their  search ads even more relevant and compelling. And of course, as search strategies become sharper, ads perform better.

    To see the latest from the front lines, watch our video featuring Martin McNulty of Forward3D, Ben Wood from iProspect, Paul Frampton of Havas Media, Steve Chester from the Internet Advertising Bureau and Khurram Hamid from GlaxoSmithKline.

    Hope you enjoy the video above; we will continue the series next week with our next post focusing on getting our partner’s views on how audience signals may impact search marketing in the future.

    DoubleClick Search now supports RLSA

    We are happy to announce support for remarketing lists for search ads (RLSA) in DoubleClick Search. If you are a DoubleClick Search customer, you can now manage and report on your RLSA campaigns directly in our platform. Further, you can now report on the ROI performance of each individual remarketing list, regardless of how they spread across different campaigns and ad groups.


    With this new capability, we’ve made it much easier for advertisers to measure the effectiveness of each remarketing list and their list strategies overall. Up to now, advertisers using RLSA through Adwords have had to duplicate and complicate their ad groups, in order to understand each remarketing list’s value. We are excited to see advertisers enhancing their search marketing campaigns by embracing audience signals, and below we’re shining a light on how customers are improving their results with RLSA:


    "Within the remarketing campaigns, renewal customer target groups showed a 89% higher ROI than acquisition customers. Also, 90% of the target group customers turned out to be customers that renewed their contract"  
    - Irina Stutvoet, eCRM Marketing Manager, T-Mobile Netherlands


    "When AdWords launched RLSA, it offered us a new opportunity to engage with our customers. Now with the addition of conversion reporting in DoubleClick Search, we can finally measure and realize the true ROI of RLSA. Across our agency portfolio we have seen RLSA campaigns improve conversion rates by 70% and CPA of 53% on average compared to non-RLSA campaigns”  
    - Matt Wright, Head of Paid Search, iProspect Manchester


    As we continue our investments in our audience capabilities, we work closely with our partners to understand what they’re looking for.


    With that in mind, over the next three weeks we’ll be hosting a series on the topic of the role of audience signals in search engine management. We’ll share perspectives from organizations like iProspect, Havas Media, and the Internet Advertising Bureau on what the opportunity is, how audience signals will impact search marketing and how marketers can get started.

    We hope you enjoy the forthcoming series on audience signals in search engine management!