The Value of Targeting, Part 1: Why Targeting Exists at All
Most marketing problems don’t start with bad ads, bad copy, or bad funnels. They start with bad targeting. Targeting often gets dismissed as a “nice-to-have,” something you worry about after you’ve launched. But in reality, targeting is what determines whether your marketing has a chance of working at all. At its core, marketing is simple: You pay to put a message in front of people, hoping some of them will take action. Every person who enters your funnel carries a cost. Sometimes that cost is obvious—like pay-per-click ads. Other times it’s hidden—your time, your effort, your attention. If the wrong people enter your funnel, they don’t just fail to buy. They consume resources and return nothing. That’s why targeting matters. Not because it’s clever or advanced—but because it’s protective. It shields your business from unnecessary loss. To understand this clearly, it helps to strip marketing down to its simplest form and look at it through an analogy we can all understand. Tomorrow, we’ll do exactly that—and see how targeting directly affects profit, not just performance. — Tomorrow: The Value of Targeting, Part 2