“How can I target the demographic that I am most interested in reaching?” The answer to that question is rather difficult.

Leave it to Microsoft to give us the tools that just might possibly answer this question. I highly recommend that you try out the AdCenter Lab suite of tools. These tools are designed to give keyword and demographic data to help with the set up of your AdCenter PPC campaign. While they are not always entirely accurate, they provide a good basis to work from. Make sure that you are using the Internet Explorer browser, or they will not work.

Search Funnels show which keywords searchers use before and after a search. For example: 3.79% of surfers search for hotel after doing a search for bed and breakfast.

Forecasting Search Volume Seasonality will help predict the demand for a keyword throughout the entire year.

I searched for vacation packages and you can see that the query rises in January and drops in September. (Click on the image for a larger view). The drawback is that there are not many words added to this tool yet. I tried a search adding snowboard, ski, rafting, and whitewater, and did not get any results for those terms. My suggestion is to also try Google Trends.

Content Categorization Engine: Search engines are putting more emphasis on categories. It is extremely important to see what the search engine thinks your site is about. Pay-per-click campaigns are also checking the landing page for the keywords that are being bid upon. If the landing page is not on topic to the word being bid, then the cost for that click is higher. I put a website for a chamber of commerce into the tool. The results are exactly what you would want those for a chamber to be all about.

Demographics Prediction is the tool to target the question at the top of the article. It will predict a customer’s age, gender, and other demographic information based on search behavior. You can type in your top keywords and determine what type of client is looking for your product.

Example: “vacation package” is generally a female between the age of 25 and 34.

As with any tool, use the data carefully. While we don’t recommend basing your entire marketing strategy around the results, you find some valuable information to keep in mind when planning your campaigns.

Lou White – Blizzard Internet Marketing, Inc.