In short: Targeting selects the audiences or situations in which an advertisement or message should appear. It is based on data available in the channel and their lawful use.
How I use targeting in practice
I do not judge targeting in isolation by platform performance. I check the connection between message, landing page, form and what happens to the contact next. I start with a small test of different arguments, not dozens of cosmetic variants of the same advertisement.
What to watch
The channel changes faster than the decision principle. I therefore do not build the process around one trick or exact tool interface. Data ownership, message quality, excluding unsuitable audiences and the ability to verify the result matter more.
Questions for decisions
- Whom do we want to reach and whom should we exclude?
- Which offer or message hypothesis are we testing?
- What happens after the first response and who owns that step?
- Are we measuring customer quality or only channel activity?