Targeted Marketing Works, Until It Doesn't

Take a look at these colourful shoes. They look quite snazzy. They've got a classic look, with a modern colour palette. The blue and gold on the back half contrast strikingly with the white and charcoal on the front half. I'll bet that if I was in the market for a pair of shoes to wear to a Royal Wedding or to a party at Elton John's house, I'd pick these shoes.

And that...is a problem with this ad placement. I'm not in the market for fancy shoes. I'm in the market for UN-fancy brake shoes for my car.

One of our vehicles needs some work done on its brakes, and I got to thinking I might be able to fix it myself. So I started noodling around the internet, searching up videos & instruction guides on "brake shoes". And this "shoe" ad started popping up.

I'm a believer in targeted marketing, to a point. If a person is searching for shoes and you serve them a shoe ad, you are smart. If a person is searching for auto parts and you serve them a shoe ad, you are not so smart.

UNLESS (here comes the exception): ....you didn't pay too much extra for it.

The great thing about targeted marketing is the ability to really get narrow and specific with who you reach. The challenge of targeted marketing, however, is that you usually pay a fairly hefty premium for the access to that targeted audience. If the premium cost you're paying is too high, you are usually better off paying the lower cost to reach a broader audience, because at least in that case you're reaching a larger volume of people.

If this shoe company didn't pay too premium a price for this ad placement, then I am OK with it. After all, I noticed the ad, and that's half the battle in marketing.

But if they paid a high premium price, I'd say there are better ways they could be spending their money.