Targeted vs mass advertising: paying only for likely buyers

Key takeaways

Targeted vs mass advertising is a choice between paying for a selected audience and paying for everyone a medium reaches. Small budgets nearly always do better with targeting. Mass reach earns its place only when almost everyone in the audience could become a customer.

• Targeted: fewer people, more of them relevant.
• Mass: more people, many of them outside your market.
• Targeted: social ads, direct mail and chosen leaflet areas.
• Mass: regional radio, newspapers, TV and main-road posters.

What do the two terms mean?

Targeted advertising is shown to people selected by where they live, who they are or what they have done. Mass advertising is shown to everyone who uses a medium. Neither is better in principle. The question is how much of the audience you are paying for could ever buy from you.

• Social media marketing vs traditional advertising: what works better for SMEs?
• CPM explained: comparing the cost of reaching 1,000 people

How precisely can social media target?

Paid social can target by location down to a radius around a postcode, by age range and by broad interests, and can show adverts to people who have visited your website or engaged with your page. Platforms restrict some options for sensitive categories, and personal data rules apply to uploaded customer lists.

• Facebook ads versus boosted posts
• GDPR and social media marketing in the UK

Can traditional media be targeted?

Yes, mostly by place. Leaflets can be delivered by postcode sector. Direct mail goes to named people. A village magazine or trade title has a self-selected readership. Local radio and regional papers are broad, though a specialist programme or section narrows them a little.

• Leaflets: chosen postcode sectors or streets.
• Direct mail: a chosen list of names.
• Print: a title's own readership.
• Outdoor: a route your buyers travel.

• Leaflets vs social media ads: which wins local customers?
• Direct mail vs social media: reaching customers by name

How do you measure waste?

Measure waste by estimating the share of the audience who could not buy. If a newspaper has 20,000 readers and 4,000 live where you work, 80% of the price is waste. Recalculate the cost on the 4,000. That adjusted figure is the one to compare across channels.

• The hidden costs of traditional advertising
• The advertising channel scorecard: pick where to spend

When is mass advertising the right choice?

Mass advertising is right when most of the audience is in your market: a supermarket, a regional retailer or a venue everyone might visit. It is also how large brands build fame. A small firm with a tight catchment seldom meets that test.

• Brand building vs sales activation: the small business view
• Social media vs radio advertising for local businesses

Can targeting be too narrow?

Yes. An audience of a few hundred people is expensive to reach repeatedly and quickly tires of the advert. Very narrow targeting also misses future buyers and the people who influence them. Start with your real catchment and one or two sensible filters, not ten.

• Advertising frequency: how many times must people see an ad?
• Niche vs broad social media content: which wins buyers?

What does targeting cost?

Targeted media cost more per person and less per customer. A mailed letter costs 60p to £1.20 and a leaflet 6p to 15p, against fractions of a penny for a radio listener. Paid social, from £300–£500 a month, offers targeting at a low cost per person, which is its main attraction for small firms.

• How much does advertising cost a UK small business?

How do you define your target in the first place?

Define the target from your existing customers. Plot the last 50 on a map and note what they have in common: area, property type, age, job or trigger. That description becomes the brief for a leaflet area and a social audience alike.

• 1. Map your last 50 customers.
• 2. Note what most of them share.
• 3. Choose areas and filters that match.
• 4. Exclude what clearly does not.

• Ideal customer profile for social media: define yours
• Run social media audience research without a research budget

What does this look like in practice?

A pattern we see with local firms: a regional advert is bought because the audience figure is large, yet nine in ten of those people live beyond the area the firm will travel to. Mapping existing customers first usually redirects the budget to a handful of postcodes.

• See client work
• Social Media Marketing for UK businesses

Next step

Plot your last 50 customers on a map. Draw the smallest shape that contains most of them. Advertise inside that shape first.