Introduction
Businesses that personalize their ads see up to 20% higher conversion rates—that’s a pretty compelling reason to start personalizing, right? And it doesn’t stop there. 71% of consumers actually prefer personalized ads, and 89% of top digital companies like Coca-Cola, and Netflix are doubling down on personalization because it’s driving real results.
For marketers, this is big news. With increasing competition, rising CPCs, and shorter attention spans, getting your audience to stop scrolling is harder than ever. But here’s the silver lining: 72% of consumers engage more with personalized messaging. That’s proof that personalization works and can help marketers cut through the noise.
Personalized ads are a game changer for SEM performance and ROI. In this article, we’ll walk through five powerful strategies that can help marketers boost SEM conversions with personalized ads.
Strategy 1: Segment Your Audience for Laser-Focused Targeting
Audience segmentation is the key to creating truly effective personalized ads. Think about sending out invitations to a group of people for an event and imagining that your invitees are diverse. When you send out the same generic invitation to everyone, some might see it matching what suits their interests and preferences; others may not. However, if you send each invitation and customize it according to the individual preferences of your guests, you are much more likely to have the right people attend and have a good time.
Just as it is in marketing, it’s the same idea. Segmenting your audience is essentially dividing your audience by the shared characteristics that they have, such as behaviours or interests. Through this way marketers can create more relevant ads with more chance of conversion by tailoring their messages to each group in a deeper level.
Why is segmentation really important? Without it, ads can fail to hit the right target, and budget can be wasted. The ads get laser-focused when they’re properly segmented, and they’re speaking directly to the people that are most likely to convert.
Let’s look at example:
Consider a SaaS company, who offers a project management tool. This company could segment its audience into two distinct groups:
- Customers who have opted for a free trial but have not yet converted to a paid plan.
- People who have expressed interest in productivity tools but haven’t yet decided to sign up.
The company could make ads for the first group that discuss what makes it so beneficial to switch to a paid plan — exclusive features, team collaboration tools, a short-term discount, etc. For the second group, the ads could focus on how easy it is to use the tool, how time any could make ads for the first group that discuss what makes it so beneficial to switch to a paid plan — exclusive features, team collaboration tools, a short-term discount, etc. For the second group, the ads could focus on how easy it is to use the tool, how time saving it is, and testimonials from satisfied customers in the ads. A significant benefit of doing this is that the ads feel more personal and are more likely to convert those leads.
The right message to the right people is exactly what effective audience segmentation can provide. Instead, you can target those based on their behavior, their interests, as well as their past interactions. Not only does this help you boost engagement, it also helps you maximize your ROI.
Strategy 2: Personalize Ad Copy for Each Audience Segment
After the audience is segmented, the next step is to write personalized ad copy. The magic happens here, CTR (and conversions) triple when messages are targeted to a specific audience, tailored for specific needs.
The mission is to make your ads feel like they were made exclusively for them. Let’s say that someone is searching your site for a product discount, you wouldn’t want to be serving them a generic “Shop Now” ad. Instead go with something more appealing like “20% OFF Limited Time Offer!” Immediate and tailored messaging like this makes the intended content jump out and increases your click rates.
Why It Works:
Personalized ad copy addresses the user’s intent. They’re more likely to take action if your ad resonates with what they’re looking for. When done well, a clear message allows a user to see the value of what you’re providing without having to search for it. This leads to better results.
One good example of this is O2’s own programmatic advertising approach. A telecom company collects an enormous amount of data from their customers, from in store behaviour to My O2 account activity. It gives them the ability to do ultra targeted personalized advertising.
For one of their campaigns they took a standard TV ad and adapted it for individual mobile users based on their device and location data. The results were impressive: In fact, personalized ads were 128% better at CTR. For O2, even the slightest tweaks—like talking to users by name or offering location specific offers—made a dramatically increase in their engagement.
Key Tactics to Personalize Ad Copy:
1. Dynamic Keyword Insertion (DKI)
Dynamic keyword insertion allows you to customize your ad copy based on the keywords a user searches for. Let’s suppose a user entered “affordable project management software”, so your ad would automatically change into “Affordable Project Management Software—Start Right Away!”
2. Test Different Calls to Action (CTAs)
The CTA is the best part of your ad copy. Depending on your target segment, you may want to use different language. For instance:
- For deal-seekers: “Grab Your Discount!”
- For first-time visitors: “Start Your Free Trial!”
- For returning customers: Upgrade Now—Continue Your Journey!”
3. Leverage Personalization at Scale
Personalization does not have to be limited to a few user segments – like in O2’s campaign. Programmatic advertising allows you to run a number of personalized ad versions at scale for different device types, locations, or customer behaviours. Hyper targeting ads can cater to a specific interest or a pain point and will increase the relevancy and engagement on the ads.
Similarly, web personalization tools make it easy to tailor website content based on a visitor’s past behavior, preferences, or demographics. For instance, suppose a user visits a SaaS website, looks at the pricing, and does not convert — that user may be shown a personalized offer, e.g., a free demo or a special discount when they return. Using this can improve user experience and lead to conversions while doing targeted messaging without manual intervention.
Strategy 3: Optimize Landing Pages for Seamless User Experience
Now that you’ve segmented your audience and personalized your ad copy, it’s time to make sure your landing page is ready to convert those clicks. Your visitors do not want to arrive on a page that feels separated from the ad they just clicked on. A bad landing page experience can cause your potential customers to leave your page.
Here’s how to make sure your landing page delivers on the promise you’ve made in your ads:
- Match Your Ad’s Message: If you are promising a discount or offering a free trial in your ad, then your landing page should not take longer than a second for people to realise that. Take for instance, if your ad says, ‘Get 20% off your first month’ then your landing page must clearly show that offer without visitors having to spend time looking for it.
- Keep the Visuals Consistent: Imagine you clicked on an ad for a project management tool that has slick, modern looking visuals. And then on that page, you land on pages with outdated graphics, that feels off, right? Your visuals are consistent ad to landing page, which reinforces the message and creates a seamless experience.
- Clear and Direct CTA: Once your visitor gets to the landing page, lead them with a clear call to action. Don’t let them have to guess what to do next. Say, for instance, rather than just “Learn More” try something more action-oriented such as “Start Your Free Trial” or “Claim Your Discount Now.”
- Add Social Proof: If your ad has captured someone’s attention, they will want to know if other people trust you. Testimonials, reviews, and client logos can do extra credibility. It could be a simple line like, “Join-us over 500 companies using our tool”.
- Keep It Simple: Avoid distractions. If the goal is to get users to sign up for a trial, the page should be kept focused on that action. Don’t make it so easy for them to get sidetracked by too many links or competing offers.
For instance, imagine that your new project management tool has a 30 day free trial. This is your ad: Try Our Tool Free for 30 Days! The page that you want the user to land on, when they click on your ad, should have that same offer, no confusion. With a simple form to sign up, the CTA could simply say “Start Your Free Trial.” Obviously it needs to load quickly, it should show a few key benefits of the tool, and maybe even have a testimonial of someone in a similar role, like a project manager, to build trust.
This keeps users from breaking the flow of the experience and creates a smoother path to conversion from ad to landing page. It is a natural next step for the user, and this increases chances of action by the user.
Strategy 4: Leverage Visual Personalization with Display Ads
With that out of the way, let’s take a look at how visual aspects can elevate personalization even further. Personalized display ads, when crafted to the user’s tastes, can yield a more engaging and impactful experience.
The Power of Visual Personalization
Visuals are just as important as the message itself when it comes to display ads. Standard ads can’t grab attention the way personalized visuals can. The same goes for when you’re shown an ad with something you’ve already searched for or something that’s of interest to you. It feels more relevant, right? Such personalization can make a massive difference in engagement: the users are much more likely to interact with your ad.
For example, let’s say you’re running a campaign for a fashion brand. Instead of showing the same generic jacket to everyone, you could personalize the ad based on location: Winter coats to colder regions and light jackets to warmer ones. Minor adjustments like this can make the ad feel more tailored, making it more relevant and likely for the users to click.
Real-World Success: Cadbury’s Personalized Ads
Another great strategy to achieve visual personalization is retargeting. Retargeting is a way to reach out to someone who browsed your site but didn’t make a purchase, and remind them with ads that include similar or the same products to the ones they viewed, encouraging them to come back and complete the purchase.
Cadbury’s “Don’t Go Far for Hunger” is a great example of this in action. Using automation to generate more than 92,000 personalized ad assets, Cadbury dynamically adapted their ads in response to time of day and location. The results were impressive: A 50% boost in ad recall and a click through rate 2.6x above industry average. Personalized visuals work — when they are tailored to a user’s context, they get your attention and deliver results.
Strategy 5: Analyze and Iterate with Data-Driven Insights
Data driven personalization can be challenging in the world of online marketing, but it can be extremely powerful when done right. What it comes down to is that you are using performance data from your campaigns to use your ad personalization in smarter, more informed ways. Monitoring the performance of your ads will tell you what you need to change in the messaging, targeting or visuals to ensure you’re getting in touch with your audience in the most efficient way.
Think about it: The data can point you in the right direction if your ad campaign is underperforming. Imagine, if you notice that some sections of your audience are more prone to click, then you can change your strategy and concentrate more on those segments. This makes your campaigns run more efficiently and over time you can see better results.
Key Metrics and Tools for Data-Driven Decisions
Insights like these need to be gathered and tools like Google Analytics and built in analytics on ad platforms are a must. These tools help you figure out which audience segments are most responsive and which aren’t, and you can then allocate your efforts to where they’ll have the biggest impact.
Metrics like Quality Score, bounce rate, and conversion rate are our key to tracking success. If your Quality Score is low that might indicate that your ad copy or targeting needs a little work. Landing page bounce rate can show you if your landing page isn’t grabbing attention, and conversion rate will show you how many people actually do whatever you want them to do after seeing your ad.
Automated reports are a pro tip here. This will enable you to create a baseline of campaign performance without having to manually dig through data and save you more time and allow for you to get insights faster.
Oreo’s campaign is an excellent example of this in action. With consumer behaviour insights, Oreo turned out ads that were empathetic and connected with a large audience. They could rapidly adjust their campaigns by continuously analysing ad performance and see increased engagement, and significant growth.
Conclusion
In order to create successful marketing campaigns, you need to adopt strategies such as audience segmentation, personalized ad copy, landing page optimization, visual personalization, and data driven iteration. Each of these tactics is important in order to improve the user experience, increase engagement and increase conversions. With continuous improvements to these strategies, marketers are able to customize their campaigns to specific audience needs and able to make data driven decisions for a prolonged period of time.
Guest article written by: 
Devanshu is the Head of Business Strategy and Marketing at Fragmatic, a web personalization SaaS platform for B2B marketers. With a strong passion for data-driven innovation, Devanshu helps businesses enhance customer engagement and promote growth through hyper-personalized digital experiences.