Google’s Next Marketing event is when all of the new Adwords updates and changes are officially announced. This year’s list of updates is quite lengthy – there’s a new user interface coming, search ads are becoming context-dependent rather than keyword driven, and A/B testing will be much easier with the new Google 360 Survey tool – but there’s one update in particularly that will be of interest to specialty retailers: Life Event Targeting

What Is Life Event Targeting?

Retail audiences can be divided in two. Group one is the shoppers who are searching for everyday needs. The second group consists of shoppers who are focused on making purchases for a specific event, such as a wedding, a move, or the kids starting school in the fall.

Google knows that the second group of shoppers does a significant amount of online research. They are leveraging the data from these search histories to target relevant Adwords to these shoppers: this is called Life Event Targeting.

Google says Life Event Targeting has been shown to produce a 50% increase in ad recall, a 35% boost in purchase intent and a five fold lift in search. For retailers who are already using Adwords, investigating the power of this new targeting tool is a good idea.

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Wait – Couldn’t We Do This on Facebook Already?

Life event targeting may seem pretty familiar, especially if you do a lot of social media advertising. Facebook introduced this functionality in January 2015. It has proven to be a powerful way for retailers to connect with customers in the moment. We know that search and social are more powerful when used in combination. Creating Adwords using Life Event Targeting can augment and enhance what you’re already doing on Facebook: the consumer who is interested and decides to turn to Google for more information before making a purchase will see your message presented again as highly relevant. That’s why it’s important to strategically plan campaigns: covering every digital touchpoint is more important than ever before.