Google "Site Targeting" Helps Marketers Tap Niche Consumer Behavior

Google's Site Targeting lets marketers define groups of online properties based on keywords and niche community vernacular. The sample universe assembled by Google based on these language rules becomes a highly targeted environment for pay-per-click search advertising. This capability provides an attractive alternative to more traditional and expensive advertising in an increasingly fragmented media environment.

BusinessWeek has a nice write up about how Paramount Pictures has successfully used site targeting to generate niche community demand for a small-budget indie film:

The service creates specialized networks of what are often small online sites and blogs, the kind of content increasingly soaking up Net surfers' attention. Now this relationship with Google is remaking the way the movie studio and distributor promote every film. And it's among the first examples of how the search engine, through a new service for advertisers, is finally able to bundle the shards and splinters of digital media into manageable packages.

Although some of the tinier sites might only attract a thousand or so individual visitors a month, Paramount says the network worked out perfectly. Surveys of people leaving the theater after the movie during the first week found that 35% had been spurred by the Internet to see the flick. So far, the small-budget indie film has grossed $22.2 million. For Amy Powell, vice-president of interactive marketing at the studio, it's all part of coping with the fragmentation of the media landscape. "We reached sites where highly networked Web editors and fans are going," Powell says.

I have written elsewhere about a similar marketing strategy used by Universal Pictures to promote the film, "The Constant Gardener." Not only is niche community targeting proving to be a more cost effective way to generate buzz around new releases, but matching content themes with consistent marketing messages increases the degree to which advertising resonates and influences consumer behavior. 

Tags: marketing google sem