What Are Website Demographics?
Website demographics are the characteristics of the people who visit your website. That can include age, gender, location, income, education level, interests, and more.
By analyzing website demographics, you can understand your audience better. And tailor your content and marketing strategies more effectively.
Why Is Website Demographic Data Important?
Website demographic data helps you create content that’s more relevant and appealing to your audience.
And if your content resonates with them, they're more likely to engage with your business and buy from you.
Plus, demographic data guides your advertising efforts. It enables you to do more precise targeting in your campaigns. This leads to more efficient use of your budget and higher conversion rates.
Finally, demographics can inform your product development roadmap.
For example, if your audience is young and eco-conscious, consider developing environmentally friendly products. Or emphasize your sustainability efforts in your marketing materials.
This can lead to higher customer satisfaction, greater loyalty, and increased sales.
How to Find Demographic Data for Your Website and Your Larger Audience
There are several research methods to uncover your website audience demographics and information about the rest of your audience. We’ve rounded up some of the best options to consider.
Google Analytics
Google's free analytics platform—Google Analytics 4 (GA4)—can be used as a website demographics tool to get detailed audience information for your website.
You must install Google Analytics to see all the information. If you need help, check out our GA4 guide to get started.
To see the demographics data within GA4, go to “Reports”> “User” > “User Attributes” > “Overview.”
You'll see a breakdown of your website audience by country, age group, gender, and more.
Audience Overlap and Demographics Dashboards
Semrush’s Audience Overlap Dashboard and Demographics Dashboard (part of the Traffic & Market Toolkit) are good options to find the demographics of your main competitors’ audience.
These dashboards analyze your competitors’ domains and show the audience traits they share.
Let’s say Walmart is your top competitor. On the Get Started page, enter their domain name and click “Create”.
Next, go to the Demographics Dashboard and get a complete overview of their audience.
In the Demographics Dashboard, you’ll see the audience’s age, gender, and which countries they live in:
The Audience Overlap Dashboard can reveal the interests of your target audience. By focusing on the shared interests of more than one competitor and narrowing interests by category, you can pinpoint marketplace preferences.
Here, we examine the shared visited domains of those who have also visited Walmart and Target.
Use findings from the Audience Overlap Dashboard to refine your paid search and paid social strategy. Or, dig into the campaigns of these shared domain brands to better inform your upcoming marketing plans.
Audience Intelligence
Audience Intelligence is an advanced tool that helps you identify specific segments within your audience—providing detailed insights into their demographics, preferences, and online behaviors.
Choose an account whose following overlaps with your target audience and enter their handle into the tool.
Audience Intelligence will then provide a detailed overview of that profile’s followers. This overview includes the following:
- Your audience’s demographics
- A list of the top brands they love
- A list of the top influencers they follow
- A list of content they engage with specific data about different segments in your audience
For more granular data, simply click “Top characteristics” on the upper right-hand side or “View more details” on the lower right-hand side of the section.
Then choose one of nine topics to learn more about. For example, “Demographics” will tell you the location, language, age, and gender of your audience.
To review each audience segment overview, scroll down the main page of the report until you find “Cluster summaries.” To see more granular details of a particular cluster, click on the cluster’s name or “View more details.”
By leveraging Audience Intelligence, you can uncover demographic and psychographic data that you can use to find new opportunities to tailor your marketing strategies and create highly targeted campaigns that resonate with your audience.
Visitor Surveys
Create surveys to ask your website visitors directly about their demographics and other information.
You can use tools like SurveyMonkey, Typeform, or Google Forms to easily design and distribute your surveys.
These tools are user-friendly and offer a variety of question types—from multiple-choice to open-ended questions.
For example, you could ask visitors about their age range, gender, geographic location, or specific interests related to your website's content or products.
You can embed surveys on your website or send them to your email list through a campaign. As an incentive, consider offering a discount code or entering respondents into a giveaway.
Facebook Audience Insights
Facebook’s Audience Insights gives you demographic information for your followers on Facebook (and Instagram).
Why is this useful?
Because your followers are likely going to be people who visit your website. So their characteristics can reflect information about your website visitors as well.
To access the data, go to your Meta Business Manager dashboard, click “Insights” from the menu, and choose “Audience.”
You’ll see your audience’s size, age and gender breakdown:
And geographic location:
How to Use Demographic Data to Improve Your Marketing
Once you have an understanding of relevant demographic data, you can use this information to strengthen your own marketing strategy.
Here’s how:
Tailor Your Messaging
Different demographic groups respond better to certain messaging approaches.
For example, a younger demographic might respond more positively to messaging that’s trendy and incorporates contemporary slang or humor.
On the other hand, an older demographic might appreciate a more straightforward, informative approach. And messaging that includes detailed product information, testimonials, and a focus on reliability and value.
Take the example of Nike.
For younger demographics, Nike often uses upbeat, energetic, and inspirational messaging.
They focus on empowerment, self-expression, and breaking boundaries. Which often resonates with these age groups.
Choose Relevant Imagery
Select images that your main demographic groups will connect with.
A classic example of a brand effectively using imagery is Johnson & Johnson.
For their baby products, they use soft, nurturing images that evoke feelings of care and safety. Which resonates with new parents.
On the other hand, they use images of people hiking, running, or otherwise living active lifestyles for their products aimed at active adults (e.g., Band-Aid bandages).
Adopt Your Content Formats
Certain content formats work better for some demographics.
For example, younger demographics often lean more toward video content.
Older demographics often prefer detailed, text-based content—e.g., blogs, research papers, and case studies. These should be well-researched and backed by credible sources.
Take Examine as an example. They’re a nutrition and supplement research company. And their audience has a high level of education, with most of them having at least a university degree.
So to cater to their audience, they create extensively researched, science-based articles on health and supplement-related topics.
Choose the Right Channels
Your marketing channels should align with where your website visitors and other audience members spend their time and how they consume information.
For example, younger female audiences are often most active on social media platforms like Pinterest and Instagram.
But if your audience is working professionals, they might be more active on LinkedIn and X (formerly Twitter).
Older, more affluent groups still rely heavily on print publications and TV for news and entertainment. So, traditional ads in those places could be effective.
Laser-Focus Your Targeting
If you run digital ads, you can use demographic data to target them to your ideal audiences.
Many ad platforms (including Google Ads and Meta’s Ad Manager) allow you to target by age, gender, income, interests, behaviors, and more.
This way, you can optimize your ad budget and increase your conversion rates by showing your ads only to the people who are most likely to be interested in your products or services.
Get to Know Your Audience Demographics
As you can tell, demographic information is incredibly valuable.
Do you know the age, gender, income, interests, and other attributes of your target audience?
If not, you can use Semrush's Traffic & Market Toolkit — specifically, the Audience Overlap, Demographics, Socioeconomics, and Behavior Dashboards — to find out.
Get started today.