Which Type of Shopper Matters Most to Marketers? Our Latest Poll Reveals Your Top Pick in the Audience Targeting List

In performance marketing, metrics matter — but what really moves the needle is who you target. So this month, we wanted to know: which shopper is the one to watch in your marketing operation? Is it the potential new shopper who hasn’t found your brand in their consideration set? Or does the value lie in reaching your base of existing shoppers? Here’s what your peers had to say.

The Top of the Funnel Customer Tops the Targeting List

Marketers like a good challenge. We asked whether you’d rather target a potential new customer who didn’t yet know about your brand or a shopper who already did. The majority of respondents (54%) prioritized getting their brands front and center (and in the consideration set) of potential new shoppers, while the remaining 46% prefer to reach shoppers who already knew about their brand.

Upper, Lower, or Both?

We also asked whether marketers preferred to heavy up on their upper-funnel efforts (21%), or dial down on their lower-funnel targeting (7%). Turns out that the majority (72%) preferred a little bit of both to get the best results.

Your Most Valued Shopper: Highest-Intent Shoppers Who Don’t Know About Your Brand (Yet)

The biggest takeaway from this month’s poll was understanding who was the most valuable shopper in your eyes —- and it looks like the majority (52%) believe that bringing your brand into their consideration set outweighs the importance of driving them to convert. 31% prioritized a shopper sitting on the fence between two brands, but what we found particularly interesting was that only 17% saw value in targeting existing customers who had only purchased from their brand once. Yet according to Forbes, customer lifetime value (CLV) is higher for loyal customers, who have a 67% higher average order value than new ones. 

Marketers have made it clear that reaching shoppers in every stage of the funnel is important, though some parts of the sales funnel have proven more valuable than others. But cracking the audience targeting code seems to lie in finding those hidden gems, specifically shoppers who are in the market for your product or service (but just don’t know it yet — or haven’t heard about your brand).  This is why finding the right tech stack and audience targeting solution is important to help meet marketers where they are — and their highest-intent audiences.