It’s virtually become a standard to integrate +1, Like, or Tweet buttons into any webpage. Sure thing, the sharing and rating buttons contribute to your overall social media exposure, but have you thought that some of them may give you even more value?
For instance, Google +1 button collects rather valuable information about your target audience, which may help you improve the performance of your ad campaigns in Facebook, Adwords, or other advertising networks.
What and where?
First, login to your Google Webmasters Tools account (we assume that your website is already verified with this service), locate +1 Metrics menu item, and click Audience link.
You should see Who +1’d your site? tab with two important charts: gender pie chart and audience age distribution column chart (see below).
In our example most visitors who +1’d the website are males in the age of 25-44.
Proceed to Where are they? tab. From this section you may learn where the visitors come from and which language they speak (see below).
That’s all we can squeeze out of Webmaster Tools for now.
Note: Before you take any decisions based on this data, make sure that your account accumulates enough +1 events (more than 1K sounds reasonable enough). The more +1’s the website gets the more reliable the demographic data is. Also, make sure your +1’s are not biased, i.e. you are not getting traffic from any sources that drive your way the visitors with some stable and/or predefined demographic profile.
How to use the data?
If you are selling on the Internet, you are likely advertising with Facebook or Adwords (or any other ads networks). Most platforms allow making adjustments to the demographic profile of the people who are going to see your ads. Here is where you may use the data collected by +1 button.
When you create any ad campaign with Facebook you may define the demographic profile of the audience.
Populate the Targeting section with the data collected by +1 button, if you want to show your ads potentially only to the most interested and loyal visitors.
Adwords
Adwords offers more flexibility. Using the Campaign Settings menu you may not only include or exclude certain age or gender groups but put higher bids to certain groups (similar approach is also implemented in Microsoft Adcenter). E.g. if you put 25% higher bids on males your ads will be shown to men more than to women.
Naturally, you may also select which countries and languages to target.
Such adjustments alone significantly improve CTR, bring down advertising costs and boost your ROI. If you have more ideas on how to use the data collected by +1 button – share them with the community in comments section. And as always, we would be happy to answer any questions and assist you.