why do demographics matter 
demographics refers to the description or distribution of characteristics of some target audience customer base or population governments use socioeconomic information to understand the age racial makeup and income distribution among several other variables in neighborhoods cities states and nations in order to make better public policy decisions companies look to demographics to craft more effective marketing and advertising campaigns and to understand patterns among different audiences who collects demographic data the u s census bureau collects demographic data on the american population every year through the american community survey acs and every 10 years via an in depth count of every american household 2 companies use marketing departments or outsource to specialized marketing firms to collect demographics on users customers or prospective client groups academic researchers also collect demographic data for research purposes using various survey instruments political parties and campaigns also collect demographics in order to target messaging for political candidates 