Google Ads are an essential marketing tool for businesses looking to grow and scale with increased enquiries and sales to reach their business goals. To get the most from Google Ads campaigns it is important to use the most impactful and relevant information for audience targeting.
There are many ways potential buyers can be reached with Google Ads. It could be from demographics based information right through to if they have interacted previously with your business and looking to remarket to them or encourage a loyal customer base.
Our blog post will look at the main audience targeting available within Google Ads that can help your business get the most from your return on ad spend and reach people based on your target audience right throughout the sales funnel.
What is Audience Targeting?
Google Ads allows advertisers to have the ability to target groups of people by putting them into audience segments. This has other terms that you may have heard of such as data segments, users lists or audience lists.
By having audience segments it allows for Google Ads to be targeted to specific segments of users which have common traits. These traits will vary depending on the selection of the audience segments.
Google Ads gives the control and flexibility to create adverts which directly resonate with that particular group of people ideal for your business.
Google Ads audience targeting can be used across search ads, display campaigns and Google Shopping. How they can be used varies between the type of ads and ad groups.
Therefore worthwhile deep diving into that when beginning a new Google Ads campaign to understand the unique targeting options, depending on the best ad types for you.
Why Does Audience Targeting Help?
Utilising audience targeting effectively, and testing and optimising target audiences can help to maximise your ad spend for your Google Ad campaigns. The better targeted a campaign is for their audience segments, visitors to Google are more likely to be interested in your ad.
By reaching the right target audience it can increase click through rates on your Google Ads and ultimately increase your conversion rates.
Having a deep understanding of your target audiences to know their interests, behaviours and purchasing habits can allow for precise targeting.
Audience targeting allows businesses to reach the right people at the right time. It could be intentionally at an earlier research stage of their purchase journey or right through to those ready to make a purchase or enquiry and interested in your business, to help convert them into a sale.
Google Ads Audience Segments
Google Ads audiences provide multiple segments of users that can be targeted when choosing from your market research and knowledge of your existing customers and potential customers for your business. This includes:
Affinity audience targeting: This refers to targeting users based on their particular behaviours, habits and interests. This could be particular hobbies they are interested in such as entertainment etc. By knowing audience signals for similar interests that relate to your products or services, adverts targeted towards them can be an ideal customer match by using affinity audiences.
Detailed demographics targeting: Aim your Google Ads at a specific group of people based on their demographic information. This can include age gender, parental status, marital status, education, employment, homeowner etc. Audience demographics allow you to build a picture of your target audiences so can tailor your adverts to suit the right audience.
In market segment targeting: Refers to seeking out the right audience who will have a higher chance of conversion for your business. This is based on their purchase habits and recent purchase intent. Therefore users come and go within this segment’s target audience. Naturally, this group of people can be smaller, however has a higher conversion potential.
Life event targeting: Depending on what your business offers this ad group would be relevant for those wishing to target particular life events and important milestones, due to offering a relevant product for that stage in their life. It could be recently purchased a home or moving, new parents or got married as an example which puts those users into your target market.
Custom Segments
Audience targeting using customer segments focuses on utilising your relevant keywords and also any specific websites that could be associated with the business.
This allows for relevant targeting to users throughout the sales journey, from initial awareness and consideration for entirely new users to your business right through to making a purchase or enquiry.
An example could be a custom segment specifically focused on gardening, which taken further could be to target people interested in the right plants for a small garden or balcony.
From this, you could target URLs for articles around the best plants for balconies or small spaces, planting tips or seasonal gardening advice.
Custom segments allow for Google Ads campaigns to show ads to people with relevant interests and enter expected keywords to help Google understand the right time and place to be showing your adverts to users, with relevant ads.
Your Data Segments
The aim of this audience targeting is to re-engage previous or current customers to interact and purchase with your business again. This was previously referred to as remarketing with Google Ads. This target audience can be a combination of online and offline data.
For example, it could be a list generated from your customer relationship management system or data collected from your website visitors.
This may be your wish to target people who are potential customers who abandoned their baskets, to help re-engage to aim to convert them into a successful purchase.
It could also be previous customers who made a purchase, however with utilising data segments looking to target people with the business goal to increase repeat purchases with current customers.
It is a powerful audience targeting tool to reach people based on their past interactions with your business.
Similar Segments
This sometimes is referred to as a Lookalike audience or Similar audience. The purpose of using this audience targeting would be to reach a new customer match based on your learnings and data from the data segments, however they are a similar audience.
Therefore have similar characteristics whether that be interests, purchase habits, demographics etc. to that of your existing customers.
It is logical to consider this when planning your Google Ads audience targeting or your next campaign because using a similar segment when choosing audience types can be one of the most profitable groups to target.
Given the fact they hold similar traits to current customers, however due to being new customers it can help to scale your business to an untouched customer base.
Testing and Optimisation
It is always recommended alongside all the other factors to consider when running Google Ads campaigns to consistently and regularly test and optimise through analysing your results and findings from Google Ads that are running.
Taking the time to test your Google Ads audience targeting is a valuable tool to identify which audience segment is performing the highest for your marketing goals, versus those which may need further testing or tweaking to further improve and maximise your return on ad spend.
How Can We Help?
We hope our blog post was helpful in understanding what audience targeting in Google Ads is and the benefits to your business by maximising the precise targeting available.
When utilised it can help to provide a better return on your ad spend and increase your conversions, helping to grow and scale your business.
At 1PCS Creative we are a Google partner and have the right expertise and knowledge to deliver impactful and results driven Google Ads campaigns across multiple industries.
Please feel free to get in touch with one of our team to discuss how we can help.
Ben Webster
Creative director at 1PCS. Addicted to design, SEO, pizza and helping companies big and small succeed online.