Reaching high-intent audiences is what every performance marketer wants, but it's not easy to execute. Real purchase intent is expensive, often locked inside search auctions. Most advertisers lose these users to high cost-per-mille (CPM) costs as soon as they leave the results page.
At Digital Brothers, we approach this challenge differently: we work with customers to capture that same intent across the open web, where CPMs are lower. This has been particularly effective across three health verticals, where older, problem-motivated buyers spend a lot of attention on articles, editorial, and long-form content about their condition, well before they ever type a query into a search bar.
Here's how to develop this type of intent-based targeting for your own marketing campaigns.
Strategy 1: Capture Search-Level Intent on the Open Web
This strategy treats off-search moments as an intent channel, not an afterthought. Search and the open web serve as two ends of the same intent curve, not competitors. Open-web intent targeting lets us reach people earlier, based on the context of what they're reading, with reasonable CPMs. Then, we can keep the prospects warm with editorial-style content, before they would ever search.
What that looks like in practice is contextual placements aligned to their problems, advertorial-first landing experiences that educate rather than hard sell, and seeding the funnel so the algorithm finds more of the people who convert. The two work together: the open web builds and captures the intent that search then closes.
The Intent that Leaks Away After the Search Engine Results Page (SERP)
This strategy takes into account the demand that exists beyond the search bar. A prospect worried about joint pain, hearing issues, hydration, or a metabolic issue consumes content on the open web the moment the problem is on their mind. That's a higher-intent moment than most people give credit for. Search only catches those buyers at the end of their journey, when they've already put a name to their solution.
Relying only on search auctions limits reach and raises costs, and it means you're only ever fishing in the small pool of people who already knew exactly what to ask for. The open web reaches prospects during the consideration stage, which is often when the real decision gets made.
Search and Mail Domain Signals as an Off-Search Intent Layer
Using search as well as mail domain signals can build valuable audiences to target across the open web, primarily using Yahoo supply. You can build an audience based on search queries and mail domains based on competitors, then serve viewers creative that highlights your offerings.
Realize data has found up to 42% lower cost per acquisition (CPA) using this strategy (although it should be noted that this is not available in some global locations).
Strategy 2: Authority-Led Creative that Qualifies the Click
This strategy focuses on the creative elements as the intent-qualifying work in a native advertising user feed. The copy can help both to articulate the benefits and solutions being advertised, and build trust in products.
Specialist Framing That Earns Trust
Expert-led hooks in headline copy can quickly set up credibility across trust-first health verticals, like these:
- Audiologists Tested 5 Hearing Aids for 6 Months. Only One Stood Out
- Cardiologists Warn: This May Affect Arteries After 50
- Top Nephrologists Reveal: 3 Do's and Don'ts for Kidney Patients
Health buyers often default to doubt when exploring products, and generic promotional copy only confirms that doubt. "50% off today" will signal to a skeptical older reader that this is just another ad, but specialist authority in the headline can add trustworthy details: a credible expert, a clear mechanism of why the product works, ingredients and dosages laid out honestly, or the problem described in language the reader recognizes as their own.
Age and Symptom Qualification to Pre-Filter the Audience
Specific, tailored copy can do a lot of the heavy lifting in health verticals. Consider qualifying prospects using copy that filters for the right person. For example, a sentence such as, "If you've had this specific problem for over a year," can make the reader feel understood, not sold to. Phrasing like "after 50" or a mention of a specific symptom will self-select the right readers, so you know that clicks are arriving pre-qualified, and the algorithm gets better-qualified traffic.
We found that the strongest, authority-led hooks drove click-through rates well above the account averages. In the kidney vertical, the strongest authority-led hooks, such as a specialist "top nephrologists" angle, ran at nearly double the account's blended click-through, close to a 95% lift. Meanwhile, a symptom self-selection hook — "if your kidney numbers are decreasing…", which pre-qualifies the reader before the click — reached multiples of the blended rate of around 2.1 - 2.3x the account average.
Key Takeaways
The bottom line is that intent doesn't only live on the SERP. Open-web intent capture, used with qualifying creative, has brought success in reaching in-market health audiences that other channels miss. This strategy meets people when the problem is on their mind, not when they've already decided on a solution. When your ads show up in context with content that earns trust, you can capture intent earlier and build demand, rather than fighting over the demand that already exists in search. Find higher-quality, higher-intent audiences at lower cost by exploring the open web.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
How does search keyword targeting work in Realize?
Realize lets you build custom audiences of users who searched specific keywords or phrases (eligible markets: United States, United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Australia, Brazil) and reach them across the open web, predominantly on Yahoo supply via Taboola's direct supply integrations. To do this, upload keywords in bulk by CSV. A broad match filter is recommended for scale, since audiences need about 1,000 monthly active users and 24-48 hours to build. Taboola data found that Realize reported up to 42% lower CPA using search keyword targeting during beta testing.
How is Realize's search keyword targeting different from running search ads?
Search ads charge per click inside the auction and only reach users on the results page. Realize's search keyword targeting builds an audience from that same demonstrated search intent and re-engages those users across open-web content at native CPMs. This is a lower-cost complement that extends intent capture beyond the SERP; it isn't a replacement for search itself. Keywords go through an approval process (mirroring Yahoo's policy), so make sure to build in a compliance step when using this feature.
Can I run competitor conquesting in Realize, and if so, how?
Yes, you can do this two different ways in Realize: search keyword targeting (building an audience around competitor-brand search queries) and mail domain targeting (building an audience of users receiving mail from competitor domains, in eligible markets). Then, serve audiences the creative that highlights your unique selling propositions (USPs) against those alternatives. Confirm keyword/domain eligibility, expect an approval step, and note that performance reports happen at the segment level, not per individual keyword.