A Multi-Channel Approach to Targeting Higher Income Households

We all know that the key to a great marketing strategy is making sure that you’re reaching the right audience at the right time.

One niche market that can be challenging to reach at times is higher income households. In this post, I’ll be outlining a couple of strategies you can take across various channels to ensure impressions aren’t being wasted and that you’re showing relevant content to the right audience.

Within Paid Search, there are a couple of options for enhancing your strategy beyond the usual keyword targeting.

The first is to create a location based strategy that prioritizes areas with high-income households. One way to accomplish this is to layer in increased bids for zip codes that have high-end neighborhoods. Depending on your product or shipping abilities, this could include places like Malibu, Aspen, Miami Beach, and of course, Beverly Hills – 90210.

To take this strategy a step further, Google also makes it possible to target users based on a household income tier. For example, if your product is considered a luxury item, it makes sense to boost coverage within the Top 10% tier. This is particularly useful for locations where there’s a mix of high-income households in potentially lower income areas. You can use both geo and income segmentation as your only targets if you want to exclude certain tiers or you can simply adjust the bid strategy if you want to avoid eliminating certain groups entirely.

I’ve included some screenshots that show how to navigate to this option within the Location Settings, as the process isn’t the most intuitive.

Within Display Prospecting, finding qualified new customers at an efficient cost can be difficult. In addition to location targeting, another way to avoid going down the “spray and pray” route, is to create a Programmatic Private Marketplace (PMP) strategy. Within a PMP you have access to buy Premium media & video inventory across sites of your choosing, without the cost of buying direct. The inventory purchased is completely transparent, which is perfect for making sure that you’re serving ads aligned with relevant content for your audience.

Some example sites for targeting the high-income household would be high-end fashion/lifestyle sites, such as Vogue, or Elle along with design sites like Dwell, Elle Decor or Veranda.

Finally, within Social, the targeting options can at times seem endless! To help keep your strategies aligned across channels, leverage some of those same publishers you’re using in your PMPs as interest targets. It’s also worth testing layering in key competitor targeting or complementary interests, like fine dining or travel.

With so many options, it’s important to have a buttoned up strategy to test new interests and learn which targeting tactics reach your audience effectively.