We all know the 50+ generation is hot on social. 2014 figures from Adweek showed that one in five Twitter users are over the age of fifty and 49% have a Facebook account.
So how does one go about targeting this age group aside from age? After all, retired is not a job title.
Well – did you know that Facebook allows users to set their own “retired job title?” And as well as job titles some may choose to put “retired” as their employer – or more humorous employee names such as “retired and loving it.”
However to capture those that don’t chose to display this option, further targeting needs to be applied. Behavioural targeting is important as “retired” also features in this list.
Proceed with caution
When selecting job titles, however, marketers will need to ensure they are not selecting actual job titles such as retirement officer, so a bit of sense-checking is needed in this area.
When it comes to age, it’s worth noting that the average retirement age is now higher and continues to rise. So it’s worthwhile always checking the average retirement age, year-on-year.
Don’t forget the ancillaries
It’s always worthwhile thinking about adjacent affinities. For example once setting age, employment and job titles other things to consider could be Household Composition – such as whether they are grandparents or empty nesters, or behaviours such as “over-the-counter medication” etc.
It’s not always the obvious and simple route
The key lesson here is to dig a little deeper with your targeting. When it comes to any audience. It’s not just about the age, and location and say a job title. It’s about thinking about their other interests, adjacency services and behaviours.
This is even more important on Twitter. Not many users choose to identify themselves using their job title in their biography, or state that they are retired, especially as there is no standard option to do so.
Marketers need to think wider as to what services/companies they may be following and think of what they may be talking about to target specific keywords.
To really tap into audiences with paid targeting (and doing it well), there are a lot of untapped resources at the disposal of marketers, and what is really important is to not forget the adjacency targeting options which can make a campaign go from mediocre to great.
Source: Marketing Land
