We’ve heard it all before.
- Today’s buyer is in control.
- Today’s buyer has high expectations.
- Today’s buyer expects personalized experiences.
But what does that really mean? And more, importantly, what do marketers and salespeople need to do to meet the demands of the modern buyer?
The answer is pretty straightforward. We need to deliver experiences that are designed specifically for each and every person that we engage with.
So – we get to work.
One way that’s worked in the past is to target the page (URL) your buyer is coming from. And there’s nothing wrong with that – you can still get some good results (leads, meetings – you get the gist).
But there are still limitations to taking this route. And that’s what I want to show you today.
Because there’s a new way you can deliver the personalized experiences your customers expect. Instead of targeting URLs, you should be targeting audiences.
Hey – that’s why we launched Drift Audiences a few weeks ago – to make it easier and drive better results ?
Here’s a glimpse at how it looks. We marketers build out audiences in Marketo, Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (formerly Pardot), or 6sense. And then our counterparts in sales build out audiences in Outreach or Salesforce.
We do this so that they can tailor the experience based on any piece of information they know about someone including where a person is in their buying cycle, what content they’ve recently downloaded, whether they’re a new or repeat visitor, and even actions they’ve taken on your website.
This helps deliver the best result – both to the customer and the company.
Here are three reasons why targeting URLs with Drift is limiting your results (and what you should do instead) ?
1. You’re creating generic experiences for every audience.
When you’re targeting URLs, you’re waiting for the people in a certain audience to find the right place on your website that will allow you to target them with more personalization.
But what happens if they never get there?
The goal is to meet people where they are, with an experience that is personal to what they are looking for.
With Drift Audiences, you can ensure that you’re personalizing the experience no matter where your site visitors are on your site and that you’re continually optimizing it as they move further through the buying cycle.
2. You’re missing out on potential opportunities.
Ah, the landing page. The battle-tested, tried and true channel that’s every marketer’s best friend. These hyper-focused web pages are perfect for helping hit specific goals, like conversion, which is why they’re super important.
Targeting those pages with Drift is a great way to capitalize on the traffic you’re driving there. But there’s one problem. Only some URLs take into consideration where you are coming from – like a paid ad – but not all.
For example, if your playbook is built to ask a lot of qualifying questions, you may miss out on people you know are qualified that drop off at some point in the flow.
With Drift Audiences, you can ensure that every single site visitor is greeted with the right message no matter where they came from. It could be an ad, email campaign, organic, you name it. If they don’t need to be qualified, they’ll skip the line and get put in touch with someone on your sales team.
3. You’re getting too specific.
Okay this headline might contradict what you’ve been reading so far, but hear me out. Yes, it might seem that by targeting a specific URL that you’d be casting a wide net serving up one experience for everyone.
But that’s not always the case. Modern marketers know they need to deliver personalized experiences for their potential customers. So instead of throwing a generic playbook up on a web page, we’ve seen Drift customers get really specific with their targeting. They’ll start with the URL and add in other conditions like geo or company size.
This might seem harmless, but what ends up happening is you drastically limit the amount of site traffic that will actually see your playbook. And in the end, you won’t get the results you were expecting.
With Drift Audiences, it’s the complete opposite. You start with WHO you’re targeting and then build out playbooks that will engage those people no matter where they are on your site.
Interested in learning more about how Drift Audiences can help you get better results? Book a demo today.
