Keeping track of the latest advertising industry demographics can make the difference between a successful advertising campaign or money down the tubes. While few things are more valuable than a skilled marketing consultant, you can use the ad demographics information you find online as a starting point to define your marketing strategy before you bring in a consultant.

You'll find that information about advertising demographics is readily available online. Publications of all kinds regularly use demographics information as a telling tool to leverage their own advertising sales. Some of the best sources for economics and demographics for advertising news and trends include:

1. Use online websites and marketing blogs as sources for your Internet advertising, economics and demographics information.
2. Read ad demographics information out of the top print publications.
3. Get raw data for your ad demographics from government census and research bureaus.
   

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Get your economics and demographics for advertising online straight from the horse's mouth

Internet marketing is profitable if you know what you're doing. Tap directly into the brains of Internet marketing specialists and consultants by reading their blogs. You'll find economics and demographics information useful for advertising to the Internet generation, alongside other useful marketing advice.

I recommend: Marcus P. Zillman pulls together a variety of Internet-based demographics of use to advertisers at Internet Demographics. David Erickson's eStrategy Internet Marketing Blog offers insight--both via the Internet and relating to the Internet--into online and social networking demographics.

Turn to magazine publishers for print ad demographics and reader information

There are two main sources of information for advertising demographics in print magazines: magazine publishing associations and the magazines themselves. Most print publications offer extensive economics and demographics information about their readers as part of a free advertising or editorial kit.

I recommend: Magazine Publishers of America offers profiles of select segments of the print marketing demographic. AARP offers detailed demographic information on their readers for prospective advertisers.

Source your demographics in advertising information from government agencies

Your most direct source of raw economics and the best ad demographic breakdown is from the government agencies responsible for collecting said data. Use government demographics information to help narrow down your target audience, or as raw data to get your advertising consultant started.

I recommend: The U.S. Census Bureau is your source for economic and demographic information throughout the nation. Filter through the demographics information sorted by a variety of topics including location, age, income and occupation. St. Mary's University offers a list of links to government databases of economics and advertising demographics.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  If you're looking to advertise in a specific publication, but can't find economic, advertising or reader and viewer information online, contact the business directly. You can rest assured that they have the information--any publication that sells advertising uses demographics information as a marketing tool.

Advertising demographics help determine your market as well as the best channels to invest your marketing dollars. Not knowing your target audience or how to reach them effectively will render those marketing dollars null, and you can't afford to waste money. You need to suss out your audience not just by age, gender or geography, but also by income, shopping habits and even, at times, religious or political beliefs. This ad demographic breakdown is at the core of advertising economics, which lets you measure the demand of any specific aggregate as well as the channels that will most likely reach that market.

Get a competitive marketing edge with information on economics and demographics for advertising. Consider the following:

1. There are consultancy services that specialize in gathering ad demographics. Find expert advice to determine your target market.

2. Keeping on top of trends in ad economics is vital to knowing where and how to spend your marketing money and how certain expenditures will increase your profit margin. Find sources that inform you about the economic impact of advertising.

3. Optimize your economic advertising by finding the best marketing channels to reach your target audience.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Find a consultancy service expert that can provide demographics in advertising

Explore services that have the technology to accurately predict demographics based on specific characteristics. Don't let your demographics go stale. Get updated data to keep your customer database fresh and accurate.

I recommend: Specific Media circumvents the basic audience measurement services by offering advanced proprietary demographic technology that precisely targets potential markets through its network that reaches 140 million consumers a month. Currently, it targets by age and gender but is expanding to reach segments by income and education level. The Nielsen Company's proprietary software Claritas features demographic data from the U.S. Census, local governments, the U.S. Postal Service, as well as the National Association of Realtors. Its Update Demographic provides current year estimates on characteristics such as population, household and income.

Keep informed about the economic effects of advertising and how it impacts your market and profit

Growth and downturns mean fluctuation in the advertising industry. The industry provides reports, white papers and other resources to that analyze trends and other market information. Subscribe to resources that keep you informed about the industry and its economic effects.

I recommend: Goliath provides reports and other resources by industry segments, including online advertising. Subscribe to receive industry trend information and statistical marketing reports. The subscriptions are annual and monthly, or you can purchase a particular report online. Sign up with MarketResearch.com to track the latest marketing and advertising research.

Find the marketing platforms that will optimize your economic advertising

Advertising economics vary depending on your marketing channel, whether Internet marketing, direct mail or radio/television advertising. You want to maximize the return on your marketing dollars, especially in an economic downturn. With the decreasing popularity of print advertising, online advertising is one economic advertising channel to reach multiple targets at minimal investment. To broaden your audience, also consider an integrated, multichannel marketing strategy.

I recommend: Increase your marketing audience and brand awareness with Direct Agents, which specializes in interactive, online marketing performance. It provides dynamic online media solutions for the ever-changing Internet market. Main Street Commerce offers software that supports all channels of marketing, including e-commerce, phone sales and a B2B sales engine, to give you cost-effective marketing results.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  Education is a vital component to understanding marketing. Bone up by purchasing books or guides on economics and demographics for advertising.

Ad demographics — the information about who is responding to an ad — is key to advertising economics. Understanding demographics in advertising is key when creating all aspects of an ad campaign. Advertising demographics — knowing exactly who who your target audience is — is one of the first points considered during brainstorming sessions involved in creating a campaign.

You need to be able to perform an ad demographic breakdown and analyze the economic impact of advertising in order to understand the economics and demographics for advertising. This is a critical skill for anyone whose job involves any aspect of advertising industry demographics. This article will highlight the following economics and demographics for advertising applications and uses.

1. Multiculturalism is having an increased impact on ad economics.

2. Gathering age demographics has a huge impact on economic advertising data.

3. Gender plays a vitally important in determining advertising economics.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Understand the multiple cultures involved in advertising demographics

Racial ediversity was not a factor in mainstream advertising during much of the 20th Century, according to UT at Austin Advertising Professor Jerome Williams. This is changing in the 21st Century and there is an increased strategy on the part of companies and their ad campaigns to connect with wider demographic audiences from a cultural perspective referred to in the industry as 'visual diversity.'

I recommend: Think Multicultural devotes its entire blog to the importance of targeting different ethnicities whenever you need to get a message across. The blog includes many articles discussing multiculturalism in advertising. An ABC News article discusses the increase of ads projecting the image of racial harmony as part of multicultural ad campaigns.

Analyzing age breakdown is key to demographics in advertising

One of the key uses of gathering advertising demographic data is to understand the age of your audience to determine exactly how to approach a campaign. This is because it is well known that each age group is likely to be experiencing certain life events, such as teenagers aged 13-17 going through puberty. In addition, each age group identifies with certain traits that make that generation unique, such as the baby boomer generation being known for its activism during the 1960s and 1970s. Advertisers take this information and weave it into the fabric of their campaigns.

I recommend: Prophetic Media's site has a graph that displays the age demographics of the popular social networking site Facebook, where many companies place advertisements. The TVbytheNumbers blog contains an interesting article on the impact of age demographics and its affect on how advertisers use television to promote their products.

Appreciate the importance of gender targeting in regard to advertising demographics

Many argue that U.S. society often stereotypes what it means to be male or female. There can be little doubt that the advertising industry is fully aware of this notion, and considers gender stereotypes when formulating advertising concepts. This is why an understanding of gender demographics is critical.

I recommend: MediaKnowAll, a web guide for media students, discusses the importance of gender, the characteristics of each gender, and how they are considered for marketing and advertising purposes. Stanza's Socyberty analyses male and female roles in its blog entry entitled "Representation of Gender in Advertising."