The Audience Expansion Myth
18 May 2025 » Opinion
Picture the following scenario: you and your marketing team invest countless hours analyzing your total population, building an audience for a campaign and crafting content tailored specifically for them. The campaign launches and becomes a resounding success. Then, out of the blue, executives decide you should double the audience. Their logic is simple: double the audience, double the revenue. No further thought is given to the complexities involved. Does this sound familiar? What could possibly go wrong?
The glaring red flag in this situation is a fundamental misunderstanding of audiences and the value of personalized content. It also reveals a lack of respect for the marketing team’s expertise and effort. You conducted thorough analysis and identified a subset of your customers most likely to convert with the personalized content you created. This was not a random selection; a lot of strategic thinking went into it.
Believe it or not, I have experienced this exact scenario. I still remember how shocked we were by the request. It almost felt as if the executives wanted us to fail. A fellow Adobe consultant on the project once joked that we might as well get rid of audience segmentation altogether and blast every campaign to the entire customer base. In case it is not clear, this was pure irony.
Some Examples
If this all sounds too high level, let’s look at some concrete examples:
- Valentine’s day campaign. Suppose you have segmented your campaign by gender. The campaign targeting men is a hit. Executives then ask you to double the men’s audience. The only way to do this is by including women in the audience. I guess I do not need to explain why women are unlikely to respond so enthusiastically to a campaign designed for men.
- Recent converters. Imagine you target people who have purchased within the last six months. These customers are more likely to engage again. Expanding the audience to include those who purchased in the past year brings in people whose engagement is much colder. It is unrealistic to expect the same enthusiasm from them as from recent buyers.
- Banking offers. A bank runs a campaign offering credit cards to customers with a mortgage, excluding those who already have a credit card. If pressured to expand the audience, do you start including customers who already have a credit card? The offer becomes irrelevant, and conversion rates plummet.
If you are reading this, you probably do not need a explanation on the importance of audiences and personalization. More likely, you are facing pressure from above and looking for ways to push back against these misguided requests.
The Power of Personalization
Returning to the red flag mentioned earlier, anyone in digital marketing understands the critical role of personalization. A quick Internet search will confirm its importance. Personalization involves dividing your total population into groups with similar characteristics and offering each group products or services that resonate with them.
The examples above are a reductio ad absurdum, they demonstrate through exaggeration just how flawed the logic of indiscriminate audience expansion is. When you dilute your audience, you dilute your message, and ultimately, your results.
Personalization is not just a buzzword, it is a proven strategy. According to numerous studies, personalized marketing campaigns consistently outperform generic ones in terms of engagement, conversion rates, and customer satisfaction. When you expand your audience without proper segmentation, you risk losing the very advantages that made your campaign successful in the first place.
Why It Does not Work
The assumption that doubling your audience will double your revenue is fundamentally flawed. Here’s why:
- Audience quality. The original audience was carefully selected for its high likelihood to convert. Expanding the audience means including people who are less interested or less relevant, which lowers overall conversion rates.
- Diminishing returns. The law of diminishing returns applies. The first group you target is the most likely to respond. Each additional group is less likely to convert, so the incremental revenue per new audience member drops off quickly.
- Message dilution. When you try to appeal to everyone, your message becomes generic and less compelling. The result is lower engagement across the board.
How to Push Back Constructively
So, what can you do when faced with executive pressure to expand your audience?
- Ask probing questions. Start by gently probing their assumptions. For example, ask, “What makes you think a different audience will behave the same as the original?” This encourages critical thinking without being confrontational.
- Use the socratic method. Guide executives through a series of logical questions that help them arrive at the right conclusion themselves. This approach is often more effective than simply stating your case.
- Present data. Use past campaign data to illustrate how different segments perform. Show how expanding the audience in previous campaigns led to lower conversion rates and wasted budget.
- Offer alternatives. Suggest running a small test with the expanded audience before rolling out a full campaign. This allows you to gather data and minimize risk.
When You Have No Choice
Sometimes, despite your best efforts, you will be overruled. In these cases, your best ally is data and reporting.
- Segment reporting. When the expanded audience goes live, there will be a noticeable break in the data. Trends in key metrics will shift. The best way to handle this is to create separate reports: one for the period before the change and one for after.
- Compare audiences. If possible, break down the results by original audience, new audience, and combined audience. This will help demonstrate the impact of the change and may provide ammunition for future discussions about audience strategy.
- Document everything. Keep a record of your recommendations and the rationale behind them. If the expanded campaign underperforms, you’ll have a clear trail showing you advised against it.
Final Thoughts
Audience expansion, when done without strategic thinking, is a recipe for disappointing results. The allure of bigger numbers is strong, but marketing success depends on relevance, not reach. The next time you are asked to double your audience, remember: bigger is not always better.
Use your soft skills to educate stakeholders and advocate for data-driven decisions. Sometimes, the best way to protect your marketing success is by standing firm on the importance of targeting the right audience, not just a bigger one. Ultimately, the data will speak for itself-if you let it.
Have you ever been in a similar situation? What did you do?