Audience targeting has grown over the years in Google Ads. You can access audience segments from various sections within the Google Ads platform, specifically from the campaigns area. You used to focus on targeting broad affinity audiences in your display advertising and video advertising campaigns. Today, you want to focus on Your Remarketing audiences, similar audiences, In-Market audiences, and custom intent audiences.
Google Ads Audiences
We will cover everything you need to know about Google AdWords audiences and targeting in the video below. One of the powerful features of Google Ads is the ability to create a custom segment, which allows you to tailor audiences based on specific keywords, URLs, and related apps. Read the corresponding article to get a true understanding of audiences and their impact in your Google Ads campaigns.
What Are Google Ads Segments?
Google Ads is a comprehensive way to market your business. It can allow you to create customized marketing campaigns to help you boost sales and improve brand awareness. With Google Ads Audience segments, you can create and manage unique data segments based on the traffic to your website, apps, or social media pages.
Detailed demographic segments allow you to customize your advertising strategies according to specific life attributes of the audience, such as parental status and education. The data collected allows you to control the audience segments across YouTube, Google Search, Gmail, and the Google Display Network. With detailed audience segments, you can market to your selected audience to improve your odds of converting to a new customer. Read on to learn more about the different audiences that Google Ads Audience Segments offer.
What Are Audiences in Google Ads?
Google collects data and classifies users into specific categories based on the information they collect. The data they collect can include interests, intent, demographic features, and more. By incorporating relevant keywords, marketers can more effectively target niche audiences by aligning their ads with the search terms potential customers are using. People who utilize Google offer a lot of information when using Google tools. When businesses use Google Ads, there is even richer data that can be collected.
These groups of people are called Google Ads audiences or Audience segments. There are generally two types of audiences: Users who have interacted with your brand and users who might be interested in your brand. This rich data that Google Ads collects allows you to improve your marketing reach and the effectiveness of your campaigns.
Google Ads Audience Segments
Different audiences within different segments are going to work better for your business. Similar segments are groups of users that share similar online behaviors to existing customer lists, effectively aiding in customer acquisition by identifying potential new customers who resemble the most profitable existing ones. You want to have a thorough understanding of the various segments available that can help you tailor your campaign to what would be most beneficial to track. Below are the 7 Google Ad Audiences you can use.
Audience Segments Video
Affinity Segments
Affinity segments are a group of people you can target with specific hobbies, habits, and interests based on their lifestyle. This segment is used primarily for awareness marketing and reaching the right people at the right time in their life.
In-Market Segments
In-Market segments are for people who have already shown an interest in your products or services. These users may have already purchased or have come close to purchasing. These categories are based on their current shopping behavior. They are the ideal candidate for a high-intent prospecting campaign.
Life Events Segments
Life events segments are centered around people going through specific life events such as marriage, divorce, moving, graduating, and more.
Detailed Demographics Segments
This segment offers information that people have given your business or that Google has collected, including age, income, gender, whether you’re a parent, a homeowner, and more.
Your Data Segments
The segment, formally known as remarketing, is available for you to get an in-depth overview of people who already have a relationship with your business. This segment looks at people who have previously engaged with your brand’s website, app, or social media.
It can categorize them based on their activity, including the subcategories they’ve selected, if they viewed specific products or offers, or if they have made purchases. It can also detail if they added items to their carts and left your homepage.
Similar Audience Segments
The Similar segment is a list of users that may be interested in your brand based on similar shopping habits or purchasing items or services closely related to yours. Anyone on the similar segment’s lists may be new to your website or business. They have the behaviors and habits of your current customers and are more likely to be able to convert. Google Ads uses the data from your remarketing or demographic lists to generate Similar Audience Segments.
Custom Segments
Custom segments allow you to customize the audiences to tailor to your unique business needs. It takes the data that Google collects and allows you to piece together the information you need to build a segment to reach an extremely niche audience. It’s very similar to the Affinity Segment, with the only difference being that you put it together. There are three options for audience creation:
- Interests, products, and service people search for
- Types of websites people browse
- People who searched for specific terms on Google
- People that use similar apps
In Summary
Google Ads Audiences are an essential component of any marketing campaign. It can help you customize your marketing to specific audiences and use different marketing tactics that are more likely to convert. While Google Ads Audience Segments is primarily used for remarketing efforts, it can also be a powerful tool to attract new customers.
