While keywords often come to mind first when thinking about Google Ads targeting, audiences offer a powerful alternative. Instead of focusing on what they’re searching for, audience targeting focuses on who they are.

Audiences are a potent yet frequently overlooked targeting strategy within Google Ads. They can be utilized across various campaign types, including Search, Display, Discovery, Video, and Shopping. (It’s worth noting that Performance Max campaigns utilize “audience signals,” but that’s a topic for another time!) This post will delve into the diverse range of audience targeting options available in Google Ads, empowering you to select the most fitting one for your upcoming campaign.

Table of contents

To simplify Google’s audience targeting capabilities, we can categorize them into four groups:

1. Google’s predefined audience segments Detailed demographics, in-market, affinity, life events.
2. Segments based on your data Remarketing audiences, similar audiences.
3. Custom-built segments Search term-based, website-based, app-based
4. Additional segment types Combined segments, optimized targeting, audience expansion.

Let’s take a closer look at each category.

1. Google’s predefined audience segments

Google offers four readily available audience categories accessible to all advertisers. These provide a quick and straightforward starting point for incorporating audiences into your campaigns.

Targeting based on detailed demographics

Going beyond basic demographics like age, gender, and parental status, this type of audience targeting offers more specific options based on individuals’ life stages and career paths. Examples:

• Relationship status: Married
• Housing situation: Renters

Targeting affinity segments

This involves connecting with individuals who share common interests, passions, and routines. These attributes tend to remain relatively stable, making affinity targeting suitable for building brand awareness. Examples:

• Beauty enthusiasts
• Luxury travelers

Reaching in-market segments

In-market segments consist of individuals actively preparing to make purchases within specific product or service categories. As people’s shopping behaviors change, they move in and out of these segments, making them a prime target for high-intent prospecting efforts. Examples:

• SEO & SEM services
• Vacations to Singapore

Targeting based on life events

This approach, as the name implies, aims to target individuals currently undergoing significant life changes, such as graduating, getting married, or relocating. Examples:

• Planning a wedding
• Recent addition of a dog to the household

2. Segments based on your data

Google has transitioned from the term “remarketing” and now refers to this section as “your data.” Despite the name change, the underlying concept remains the same. Google remarketing (or retargeting) involves displaying your Google ads to individuals who have already engaged with your business.

This strategy is widely used and often yields strong returns on ad spend.

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Remarketing audiences

Google Ads provides four distinct types of remarketing audiences:

1. Website: Users who have interacted with your website.
2. App: Users who have engaged with your mobile app.
3. YouTube: Users who have interacted with your YouTube channel or content.
4. Customer Match: Users whose personal information (email, phone number, etc.) you’ve collected and uploaded to Google Ads. For further guidance on remarketing, Navah Hopkins offers valuable campaign advice [in this resource](link to Navah Hopkins’ remarketing tips - replace this with an actual link if you have one).

Similar segment audiences

Also known as lookalike or similar audiences, these segments comprise users who demonstrate online behaviors akin to those on your remarketing lists.

For instance, a Similar segment built from your “Most Valuable Customers” list would include individuals new to your business but who share comparable behaviors and habits with your best customers, making them more likely prospects.

Google Ads automatically generates similar segments within your account once your remarketing lists accumulate sufficient data. It’s a highly effective tactic for acquiring new customers.

3. Google Ads custom segments

Google provides another unique audience targeting method known as custom segments. This intriguing feature, often overlooked, combines Google’s data with your specific business insights. It allows you to leverage various pieces of information that Google gathers about users and tailor them to align with your business’s unique needs.

Google Ads custom audience targeting offers three different creation methods:

• Targeting based on users’ search interests and the products/services they seek.
• Targeting based on the types of websites users frequent.
• Targeting based on the types of apps users utilize. It’s important to note that custom segments cannot be included in Search or Shopping campaigns. However, they serve as an excellent audience targeting option for Display, Discovery, and Video campaigns.

For example, during the launch of my Google Ads course, I created a custom segment targeting individuals who had searched for phrases such as google ads course, learn google ads, and google ads certification.

Additionally, I created a second custom segment targeting those with apps like Google Ads or Meta Ads installed on their phones. Both custom segments were incorporated into a Video campaign to reach new audiences potentially interested in Google Ads training.

4. More Google Ads audience targeting

But there’s even more to explore! Beyond Google’s audience segments, your data segments, and custom segments, Google Ads offers further audience targeting capabilities.

Combined segment targeting

This feature allows you to construct audiences by combining multiple targeting criteria. A combined segment can even include a custom segment, offering countless possibilities!

For example, you could create a combined segment targeting:

• Users in-market for athletic shoes OR activewear.
• AND who are luxury shoppers.
• but NOT already on your customer list OR website remarketing list.

Optimized targeting

This feature harnesses Google’s machine learning prowess to identify new audiences likely to help you achieve your business goals.

When creating Discovery, Display, or YouTube campaigns, you’re automatically opted into optimized targeting at the ad group level. This allows algorithms to excel in identifying opportunities that can improve your cost per acquisition (CPA), return on ad spend (ROAS), or any other metric your bidding strategy focuses on.

It’s worth noting that optimized targeting is used in Display, Discovery, and conversion-focused Video campaigns, while its counterpart, audience expansion, is employed in reach-focused Video campaigns.

Google Ads audience targeting cheat sheet

To recap, here’s a summarized overview of all the Google Ads audience targeting options discussed in this post:

Google’s predefined audience segments

1. Detailed demographics
2. Affinity segments
3. In-market segments
4. Life events Your data segments
5. Website remarketing
6. App remarketing
7. YouTube remarketing
8. Customer Match
9. Similar segments Custom segments
10. Search term-based
11. Website-based
12. App-based Other
13. Combined segments
14. Optimized targeting
15. Audience expansion Utilize these customer segmentation models to refine your audience targeting strategies!