LINE Ad Targeting Explained in Full

This article explains targeting in LINE Ads.
Targeting is extremely important if you want conversions as efficiently as possible.
There are several ways to set a target, and each is explained below.

1. The targeting options

LINE Ads offers the following four kinds of targeting.

• Demographic targeting
• Audience targeting
• Lookalike targeting
• Cross targeting

Here is what each one is like.

2. Targeting in detail

2.1 Demographic targeting

“Demographic targeting” means a user’s gender, age, area, OS, interests, behaviour and attributes are used to target the ads.

This is used on other advertising platforms too. Targeting of this kind is possible on the basis of the data LINE collects.

In detail, the targeting works as follows.

▼Area segments

You can specify an area by prefecture or by municipality.
You can also select an area by radius.

[Who sees the ads]
You can choose from the following.
・People who live in this area, people who work in this area, people who have been in this area recently
・People who live in this area, people who work in this area
・People who live in this area
・People who work in this area
・People who have been in this area recently

[How to specify it]
Specify an area (prefecture or municipality)
Specify a radius (3km or more)

▼Gender segments

You can choose from the following.
・All
・Male
・Female

▼Age segments

You can choose from segments in five-year bands, from 14 and under to 65 and over.

• 14 and under
• 15 to 19
• 20 to 24
• 25 to 29
• 30 to 34
• 35 to 39
• 40 to 44
• 45 to 49
• 50 to 54
• 55 to 59
• 60 to 64
• 65 and over

▼Interest segments

You can specify from the following 18.
For cars you can also choose from nine body types.

・Games
・Digital devices and home appliances
・Sport
・Work and business
・Fashion
・Home, interiors and gardening
・Television and programmes
・Music
・Education, learning and qualifications
・Finance
・Health
・Entertainment
Shopping
・Books and comics
・Food and drink
・Beauty and cosmetics
・Travel
・Cars
(kei car / compact car / hatchback / saloon / sports car / estate / MPV / SUV (compact) / SUV (large))

▼Behaviour segments

You can choose from the following seven items.

• How often they watch television (watches television often / average / rarely)
• Change of carrier (changed carrier in the past two years / has not changed)
• Conversions (many website conversions / many app installs)
• Type of game played (adventure game players / casual game players / RPG players)
• Change of mobile device (changed device in the past two years / has not changed)
• Network use (does not use Wi-Fi)
• Purchase intent (high purchase intent for cars (luxury) / high purchase intent for fashion (luxury))

▼Attribute segments

You can specify from the following four items.

• Spouse (married / unmarried)
• Children (has children / no children)
• Mobile carrier (NTT Docomo / au / Softbank)
• Estimated income (bottom 51% and below by income / 21 to 50% / 11 to 20% / top 10%)

2.2 Audience targeting

An “audience” is one of the targeting settings that make advertising more efficient.
You can use user data, such as device identifiers, and the customer data the advertiser already holds.

▼Audiences you can create from the LINE Ads console

・Web traffic audience
Using LINE Tag tracking data, you can create an audience of the people who visited your site. You can also create an audience based on events such as a purchase on the site.

・Mobile app audience
You can create an audience based on events that happened inside the app, such as people who opened it or made a purchase in it.

・IDFA/AAID upload
You can create an audience using IDFA/AAID data you hold. You can add to or update the audience later on the edit page.

・Phone number upload
You can create an audience using phone numbers you hold. You can add to or update the audience later on the edit page.

・Email address upload
You can create an audience using email addresses you hold. You can add to or update the audience later on the edit page.

・LINE official account friends audience
You can create an audience of your LINE official account’s friends, or of friends who have blocked you.

・Lookalike audiences
This finds users similar to an audience you have already created and expands the audience size. You can choose a similarity of 1 to 15%, or automatic.

・Video view audience
You can create an audience of the people who viewed a given video asset. You can specify what proportion of the video they played.

・Image click audience
You can specify a campaign ID and create an audience of the people who clicked the images used in that campaign.

2.3 Lookalike targeting

This is called “lookalike targeting” or a “lookalike audience”.
It finds users similar to an audience you created yourself and expands the audience. You can choose a similarity of “1 to 15%” or “automatic”.

The higher the similarity, the more likely people are to act, but the audience is smaller and the number of people you can reach is limited.
Conversely, the lower the similarity, the less likely people are to act, but the audience is larger and the pool you can reach grows.

▼Settings

・Audience source
Select the audience to use as the source. You can also use an audience shared with you from Business Manager.

・Audience size
Select the audience size (expansion of 1 to 15%, or automatic).
You can create up to 10 lookalike audiences.

The similarity LINE recommends is “automatic”.
With similarity set to “automatic” the audience size is hard to control, but performance tends to be stable, so it is worth using when the ads first go live.

2.4 Cross targeting

“Cross targeting” links data between LINE’s business services, so that you can reach people on the basis of the actions they have taken.
Linking data across services lets you deliver a message better suited to the target.

A LINE official account accumulates action data, such as message opens and clicks, for the users who have added it as a friend.
Using data of this kind for retargeting in LINE Ads lets you advertise more precisely.

▼Examples of cross targeting in use
Cross targeting lets you use audience data in the following ways.

・Widen reach among users who have not opened a message
By excluding the users who opened a message you sent from your LINE official account, you can widen your reach efficiently while targeting more precisely.

・Advertising to users who are likely to buy
If a user has linked their own LINE account with a service such as an online shop, you can take the data on users who buy often, or who spend a lot, build a lookalike from it and advertise to them.

・Winning good friends with lookalike expansion
You can take data on users who opened a message in your LINE official account, or who followed a link, build a lookalike from it, and run an “add friend” ad through LINE Ads to win friends for the official account.
This lets you win loyal users and leads on to ongoing communication.

3. In closing

That covers targeting in LINE Ads in detail.

• Demographic targeting
• Audience targeting
• Lookalike targeting
• Cross targeting

Set this targeting to suit your goals and work at it so that you reach the users most likely to act.