Search & Social Data Unite!

Retargeting your audience is something many online marketers are fans of. We all know by now that companies can go after Facebook users who have visited their site or clicked on their ads. This was a big move when it was introduced a few years ago. However, marketers can now step up their game even more with a new tool that intertwines search and social data. Let’s say a user performs a Google search and clicks on an ad, but the user ends up leaving the page and no conversion is made. Well now there is new ad technology that allows marketers to grab those keywords used in your Google, Bing, or Yahoo search and with those keywords, the user can now be targeted on the social giant, Facebook.

Facebook has teamed up with Kenshoo, a leader in media optimization technology, and together they have created a tool that essentially allows marketers to find the keywords that you used in your search and then follow up with ads on Facebook in the near future. Think of this like a bridge being built from the Google headquarters to the Facebook headquarters and internet marketers are driving up and down the bridge like crazy. Kenshoo has given this marketing solution the name of Intent-Driven Audiences. On their site, Kenshoo stated “IDA is the first solution in the market that matches clicks on search engine ads to audiences on Facebook in real-time. This allows marketers to show ads to consumers that have searched for specific keywords and also use Facebook’s targeting capabilities to find more customers like them.”

This is big news for the Internet Marketing world. PPC managers and Social Media experts will especially be thrilled by this new technology. In terms of PPC campaigns, cost-per-click will likely be lowered, in turn making the client an even happier one. There are many keywords out there that can be quite expensive. This new tool will allow the cost-per-click of these keywords to be lowered. Marketers will essentially have a second chance in hopes of the user making a conversion. If a conversion was not made on the initial search, then marketers can use Facebook to retarget them at a later time. In turn, a higher return-on-investment will come to light. It is a win-win for the marketer and their client. Social Media experts should be very excited about this as well. This new tool is definitely a game changer.

While Kenhoo is taking in all the glory here, Facebook has made it clear that Kenshoo does not have exclusive rights here. Other companies are welcome to create their own versions of the tool. Either way, Facebook is benefiting from the whole situation. What about Google and other search engines though? They are not necessarily benefiting from this new technology, but knowing Google, I’m sure they will figure out a way in which they benefit.

This marketing solution brought to us by Facebook and Kenshoo is still in the beginning stages. However, it appears that it should be quite successful. What are your thoughts on this new technology? What are additional benefits marketers should expect from this? I think this will be very interesting to see in analytics, specifically the multi-channel funnels.