How to Use Quora Question Retargeting in Dental Marketing

It’s time to add another tool into your digital advertising tool belt. What is it? Question retargeting from the question and answer forum, Quora. This new option allows dentists and their marketing agencies to target potential patients based on their Quora questions. For example, if a potential patient needs a new crown, they may ask, “Do I need a dental crown?” In this instance, there are a number of ways you can gain new patients through Quora advertising. Let’s start!

What are Quora Questions?

Simply, Quora is a social media platform for users to ask or answer questions and for business owners to market to users through contextual and behavioral marketing with earned and paid media. First, let’s talk about earned vs. paid media. Later in the post, we will talk about contextual vs. behavioral marketing.

To market with earned media, develop online credibility by answering questions and providing valuable information. For example, as a dentist, if you answer numerous dental questions, you will gain credibility, or earned media. To market through paid media, marketers can use Quora’s ad platform. A Quora Ad is different from a traditional retargeting ad on a website because the Quora Ad is placed between answers for the user’s question. For example, between the answers of “Do I need a dental crown?” your ad copy for “Get affordable dental crowns in the Dallas area.” appears. Below is a comparison of a Quora Ad and a Google Ad.

What is the difference between Quora and Google Ads?

When a user types a question into Google a list of search results appear. In the case of a Google Ad, your relevant search result is placed at the top of the results page and links to your website. For a Quora Ad, the user first selects the Quora website on the list of Google search results and then encounters your ad in the mix of relevant answers. In the Quora Ad, the user views your copy amongst trustworthy content, therefore making your ad seem more trustworthy.

Another difference is that the copy for a Quora Ad is written as a sentence while a Google Ad is written as a statement (shown above). Because of this, Google ads could warrant less credibility than a Quora Ad because the Quora Ads are mixed within credible questions and answers vs. ranking for a broad search term. A downside to Quora Ads? There is the chance that the user may not reach a Quora page because it does not rank high in Google. In this case, having a Google Ad at the top of the search results may be the best way to advertise. And, if the Google Ad is relevant, it is sure to be seen by the user in Google’s search results. As in most marketing situations, the best advice is to diversify. Use both Google and Quora strategies to reach a broader audience and increase new patient numbers.

Quora Topic and Intrest Targeting

Before we get into the new question targeting and retargeting features, let’s talk about Quora’s basic targeting options. What are they? Well, they are topic and interest targeting. When you target by topic, you choose the content that your ad will appear around. For example, when targeting dental crowns, you may topic target ‘dental procedures’, ‘restorative dentistry’, and ‘dental crowns’.  On the other hand, Quora calls their interest targeting a ‘behavioral targeting’ option rather than a ‘contextual’ option. This means that your ad will appear based on user actions, such as reading a question, searching a question, or upvoting a question.

Question Targeting/Retargeting

This feature recently launched on the Quora platform in early January 2019. With question targeting, you can instruct your ad to appear when someone searches for a specific question. This is an example of topic targeting with a question instead of a broad topic. Now, with question retargeting, you can not only set your ad to appear on the related question page, but it will also appear on other Quora pages within a set period of time (ex. two-weeks or one month). Essentially, a mixture of topic and interest targeting. So, while a potential patient in your city is experiencing the symptoms of a missing tooth for the next few weeks after they asked, “Do I need a dental crown?” they will see your ad.

Staying up-to-date on industry trends can improve your overall digital marketing skills. Now that you have added Quora retargeting to your ad toolbox, you can use your discretionary marketing budget to dabble in it. If you have any questions about social media marketing, search advertising, or general dental marketing, feel free to contact our experts to learn more!

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