Who is a Targetologist, What does he Do?

In this article, let’s take a look at who a targeting specialist is, what the duties of a targeting advertising specialist are, and also talk about how to master this Internet profession.

What a tagger does

Targeters are specialists whose job is to set up and run social media ads. The target audience is interested in the advertised brand, product or service kirill-yurovskiy.com.

The task of the targeting is to adjust the advertising campaign so that ads are not seen by all users of a social network, and only members of the target audience who fit certain criteria: sex, age, profession, interests, location, etc.

In order for advertising to bring leads, that is, potential customers and clients, and with minimum budget spending business got the maximum result, a specialist in targeting advertising must first analyze the characteristics of the product, and then create a general portrait of its consumer. In the next stage, the targeting specialist selects the audience who may be interested in the product, and then sets up ads so that the ad is seen by specific users.

Ads in targeted advertising is called ad creative, it contains an image, text and links. The image (might be a static picture, GIF or video) is supposed to attract attention, the text is needed to explain the offer, and the link allows you to click on it and get what you are offered. For each group of the target audience creates its own creative.

As a rule, a social media strategist creates a set of test ads, and then uses various services to collect data from advertising sites to analyze the effectiveness of advertising (leads, traffic to the product page, conversion rates) and determines the most appropriate channels for promotion. The most successful creatives specialist scales, and less successful disable.

Even during the planning of an advertising campaign, an experienced targeting specialist should understand what size segment the ad should be targeted to, how much it will cost the customer per user interaction with the ad, and what budget will be needed to attract the user to the right page.

There are several levels of training for targeting advertising:

• Junior – a tagger with minimal or no experience. Such a specialist usually leads no more than three projects a month, runs advertising campaigns on social networks and is engaged in reporting.
• Middle specialist can lead a larger number of projects. His function includes managing all the processes of an advertising project, from preparing a strategy to analyzing the results. He is in charge of developing media plans and communicating with customers. He or she can be subordinate to Junior target marketers.
• The high-level specialist – Senior – leads the most complex and expensive projects, supervises other targeting specialists, and trains newcomers.

Professional skills and personal qualities of a target marketer

A target marketer needs a range of professional knowledge and skills, such as a basic knowledge of analytics and marketing analysis. A specialist in targeting advertising should be able to conduct analytical research on information from personal accounts, track responses, audience coverage, targeted actions and their cost. In addition, the targeting specialist tracks the reactions of the target audience, as well as the comments of social network users and inquiries received through personal messages.

The ability to analyze the results of an advertising campaign, the ability to determine whether actions are correct or incorrect, and the ability to adjust the campaign in accordance with the findings are also required.

Skills in working with the target audience are important: the ability to identify and segment it, to find the right platform for advertising. This requires an understanding of the specifics of the audience that spends most of its time in a particular social network.

A marketer who has skills in copywriting, who is able to write thoughtful and high-quality texts himself, as well as having experience in graphic and video editors, can earn more and he will not have to spend time interacting with designers and copywriters. And another important skill is the ability to allocate and plan the budget.

A targeting specialist can’t do without an understanding of how audience gathering tools work. Knowledge of different advertising formats and the ability to choose the right one for different audiences should also be present in the arsenal of a professional targeting specialist, as should an understanding of the specifics of the advertising rooms of various social networks, their tools and rules.

Analytical and planning skills as well as the ability to achieve success in the Internet profession of a target marketer will help:

1. The desire to develop – everything is changing rapidly in the digital sphere, and the targeting specialist has to learn continuously, as the knowledge obtained a year ago is likely to be obsolete.
2. Communicative – the specialist will need the ability to negotiate tasks with the client, set goals correctly, discuss budgets and give advice.
3. Stress tolerance – a strategist should be prepared for the fact that an advertising campaign is not always successful right away, in which case they will have to make changes and re-test it.
4. Multitasking – a tagger usually has to manage several projects or advertising campaigns at the same time. You need the ability to follow all of them at once and switch between them quickly.
5. Attention to detail – the strategist will need this quality when generating reports, as the client needs to get accurate data on the advertising campaign.
6. Creativity – in order to create promo materials it is necessary to think creatively, not be afraid to experiment and come up with creatives.
7. Effortfulness – the strategist spends a lot of time at the computer screen, performing the same actions.

Where to Study as a Targeting Specialist

You can try to learn the profession of a targetologist on your own with the help of articles and videos found on the Internet. However, learning without feedback and full practice is ineffective. You can get relevant skills, knowledge and support from professionals at various paid courses.

It makes sense for novice specialists, as well as experienced targeting specialists to improve their skills by communicating with colleagues in thematic communities, social networks and Telegram channels, where they can get advice, offer help and share information with fellow practitioners.

Pros and cons of the profession

We’ve figured out what the profession of a targeting specialist is and what knowledge is required to succeed in this field. In conclusion, let’s list the benefits of working as a targeting advertising specialist.

• Internet advertising is necessary for all companies and private professionals who have pages in social networks, so the demand for a professional in targeting is ensured.
• A target marketer can work both as a hired employee in the office and as a freelancer, or combine these forms of employment: working part of the day in the office and the other part remotely.
• The work of a tagger is multifaceted: it has room for both creativity and analytics. Creativity can be found in the creation of creative materials, while analytical skills are useful in working with numbers and charts, gathering and analyzing information, and in studying audiences and evaluating the performance of advertising campaigns.

The downside of the profession can be called the risk of wasting the budget with a lack of experience at the beginning of the career, so you should not expect high earnings in the first months of work.  However, as the specialist grows in skill, he or she learns to avoid mistakes and can quickly reach a decent level of remuneration for his or her work.