How does Google display advertising helps to attract buyers during different stages of buyers purchasing process ?

Source: https://support.google.com/adwords

As per Hubspot inbound marketing, Buyers purchasing process has 3 stages

Awareness -> Consideration ->  Decision

Source: https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/what-is-the-buyers-journey

 During Awareness stage the buyers realizes that he/she has a problem. So they will try to educate them more about their problem. This will happen through lot of secondary research, reading articles, white papers, research papers etc

During Consideration stage they will define their problem and research for solution. They will dig deeper in to types of solution available in the market and try to compare the solutions.

During Decision stage they chooses a solution. They look for product demos, videos, trial etc to make a well informed decision about the product.

Important Note : Each stage needs to have right education materials which has to be distributed through right channels

In this article, let us focus on one channel and how it helps to attract prospects based on the stage they are in buying process.  

Channel: Google Display Marketing

Google Display Marketing helps you to target buyers at different stages through different strategies

Source: https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2470108?hl=en

 It helps you to
1. Build awareness to the buyers during awareness stage

2. Influence the buyer during consideration stage
3. Attract them to drive action during the decision stage

Source: https://academy.exceedlms.com/ ;  Topic - Adwords Display Basics -> Target with the Display Network

A. Build Awareness

Target Audience: People who are trying to understand the type of problem they have.
As mentioned earlier people who are in awareness stage are very broad. It is difficult to narrow down. So the target audience will be broader

1. Demographic targeting:

If you have idea on the target audience demographics then you can select them based on Age,Gender, Income, Parental Status, Region, Language etc

2. Affinity Audience:
Google has segmented audience based on their long term interests. These audience are called as affinity audience. There are approximately 80 segments. You can choose the right/closest segment similar to your audience.
Eg: “Sports Fans”, “Travel Buffs”, “Cooking Enthusiasts”, “Foodies” etc

3. Custom Affinity Audience:
This set of audience are little optimized. Eg: Instead of targeting a general “Sport Fans” Category, you can target “marathon runners” if you are selling running shoes.
You can define your audience by adding relevant interests, URLs, Places or Apps
Interest - Eg: online buyers
URL - Eg: Flipkart.com
Place - Eg: Online website
App - Eg: Flipkart,Amazon

4. Managed Placement Targeting:
If you have idea on the type of website/Youtube channel/videos, your target audience will visit, then you can target those audience by giving the URLs of the website or selecting youtube channel or you tube videos. Your ads will be shown to those audiences when they visit that particular website, youtube videos
Education Material: Research reports, ebooks, Expert content, Analyst reports etc

B. Influence Consideration

Target Audience: In this stage, buyers have understood their problem and actively looking for solution. To reach this type of audience, below targeting options will help

1. In-market audience: 
These are consumers who are actively researching on these products
Eg: “Healthcare Products”, “Motor Vehicles New” , “Diapers & baby Hygiene products”
Your ads will be shown to this type of audience

2. Content Keyword Targeting:
You can give a list of keywords. Google will identify the audience who are using these keywords to visit certain type of websites. Your ads will be shown on those websites (Content relevant to the listed keywords)

3. Similar Audiences:
These are also called as “look-alike targeting”. Your ads will be shown to the audiences who are similar to the site visitors listed in your remarketing list
Education Material: Buyer identifies the different solution (product/service) available in the market. Compares them and try to understand more in detail. So your education material should answer all his queries. Eg: Webinars, Comparison Whitepapers, Videos etc

C. Drive Action

At this stage they have to finalize the solution (product/service).
Target audience: The majority of the people who have visited your website should be definitely in this stage. For some reasons they haven't bought your product/service. So it is important to understand those reasons and attack them with right material through re marketing.

1. Display Remarketing
People who have visited your website and didn't make any purchase, then we have to get back them to our website to make a purchase. This can be done through remarketing. Remarketing lists will have all the visitors who have visited to your website. You should tarQget them by relevant ads.
Remarketing types : Standard, Dynamic & Video

Education Material: You have to serve the buyer with proper material to convince him to purchase. It can be demo, trial, price comparison, customer case studies, product details etc.

Important Note: The key thing in all the stages is; targeting the right people; with right ad material; that leads to right education material for high conversion

Source: https://academy.exceedlms.com/ ;  Topic - Adwords Display Basics ->Target with the Display Network