Okay, I see completely why you are confused. You start out saying the "customer searches" (it's actually consumer in what we do). So your thinking that the action of the consumer is what creates your target. This is impossible. The consumers search may be a target, that is what SE's do is provide a search result and there is absolutely no way to target a search by geo or demographic. A traffic target is a specific consumer, a specific geo, maybe with specific interest, etc., etc. You cannot target a specific consumer, consumer demographic, geo, or any other traffic targeting. Targeting in SEO is the practice of optimising your content to appear for your target, it is not targeting the traffic by matching the traffic to a specific consumer.
The targeting options in paid traffic are all there for the most part. The most basic demographic targeting option is by age, location, and gender. Then there is detailed targeting, which includes education level, financial or relationship status, whether they're parents or not, and so, so, so much more.
The result is that paid traffic shows our ads to exactly who the offers are aimed at, something an SE cannot provide. Paid traffic our ads in front of the consumer immediately, something SE's cannot provide. All an SE can do is provide ranked results to the consumer based on the content of the sites and it will never rank or display landing pages in SE results.
