In today’s digital world, businesses cannot succeed without making use of online or digital marketing. With the help of digital marketing, businesses can connect with new potential customers in the ever-growing online market landscape, thus making them more efficient in generating leads and revenue. The first step to being successful with online marketing is having a clear idea of the ideal customer you are targeting. The more data you have about your ideal customer, the more you can utilize it to target your online marketing campaigns. However, this is a major concern for entrepreneurs, marketers, and businesses worldwide because of Big Data. It has become hard to read any tech-related article without a reference to Big Data.

Big Data or Metadata refers to the large data sets generated by online users and is mostly controlled by large tech companies. The more a business knows about the interested customers and fans, the easier it is for them to target the promotion campaigns. As such, it is surprising that out of all the big data available, only 3% is currently tagged, and only 0.5% of this tagged data is used for analysis. Micro-targeting is the future of online marketing. It is a waste of time and money to inform a customer in Christchurch about a service offered only in Queenstown, and micro-targeting helps you save this effort. This is especially important in the case of small businesses as they tend to not have much money to spend on advertising and marketing efforts.

Some of the platforms that small businesses can make use of for micro-targeting are Facebook and Google. Facebook ads can help you choose your core audiences based on various criteria such as age, interests, behaviors, gender, geography, relationship statuses, education levels, job titles, and connections. You can also choose custom audiences based on their past engagement with your business. With Facebook ads, your business can also reach new potential customers with similar interests as your best customers. Facebook also offers tools such as Business Manager, Facebook Pixel, and Facebook Audience Insights to make your job as a small business owner easier. Facebook also offers a service called Meta Insight, which helps you with culture and future trends based on combined data from Instagram and Facebook. Google Ads is one of the common methods used for advertising, and small businesses can start with a comparatively small budget. Google Search ads, which appear on top of search results, put you directly in front of customers looking for products or services similar to those offered by your business. You can also make use of tools like Google My Business and Google Analytics to reach your target audience efficiently.