How to Define Audience in Google Ads for Your Business

 

 

Before we explain how you can define your audience in Google Ads, it’s important to know where you can find it. You can find your audience if you log into your Google Ads account and go to the Audience Manager in your shared library. That is where Google collects the data about your audience.

For now, there are four Google networks where it’s possible to use audience—Search, Display, YouTube, and Gmail.

According to Google, “Audiences are groups of people with specific interests, intents, and demographics, as estimated by Google. You can select from a wide range of categories, such as fans of sport and travel, people shopping for cars, or specific people that have visited your site.”

TYPES OF AUDIENCE IN GOOGLE ADS

Below are some of the most commonly used audiences for product targeting.

Affinity segments - we reach our customers based on a holistic picture of their lifestyles, passions, and habits. 

Life events - as life events determine our demeanor and purchase behavior, we can use this segment to target specific people.

In-market segments - here, customers are searching for products and considering shopping services or products similar to those we sell.

Custom segments allow us to decide how we want to target our audience by entering keywords, URLs, and apps.

Custom intent segment - auto-created (Display) is excellent for targeting a specific vertical or landing page in display campaigns. It is not available for all languages.

Your data segments - (formerly known as remarketing) will allow you to reach people who already have visited your web page or application, people who already have shared information with you, and people similar to your customers. 

Detailed demographics - usually refer to age, gender, and parental status, but not only that. We have information on the population with common traits (college students, homeowners, new parents, etc.).

I would like to highlight that you can utilize other audience segments for targeting and that these are the usually used ones. 

DEFINING AUDIENCE IN GOOGLE ADS

Who is your consumer? Who is looking for your product or has an intent to buy from you? 

Often, we can have a completely wrong idea about ​​our audience. We can be led by conclusions based on past experiences and make decisions that significantly determine our targeting. To make matters worse, we can gather experience-based assumptions or metrics such as the demographic characteristics of existing customers.

Our customers are important to us, and our brands depend on them. But people who buy our products represent only a small percentage of the entire market segment. Therefore, if you focus your advertising messages only on people similar to your existing customers, you may lose those who are not like them but are interested in what you offer.

What should you do? 

Start thinking about how to extend your advertising messages to those people who are not similar to your existing customers but intend to buy your product. Google calls this audience type In-market or Intent people.

GOOD TO KNOW

The truth is stereotypes affect us and can mislead our decision process. 

• Women generate 46% of mobile device searches for tools and home decoration equipment.

• 40% of baby products are bought by people living in households without children.

• Women perform 55% of searches for sports equipment on mobile devices.

TARGETING AUDIENCE IN GOOGLE ADS

I will not write about what you already know: using the right keywords and URL or metrics such as demographic characteristics, gender, etc. You need to define your audience to show your ads only to the right people. The custom audience option allows you to reach a specific audience. 

We are constantly thinking about the right keywords and the right URL, but it is also important to reach people through messages.

You will reach the In-market or Intent people with a good message and a targeted audience. It’s important to explain to your customers that you do not want or need to reach everybody.

EXTRA TIP

In order to reach an audience in Google Ads from a competitor's website or an audience from a website that has a tight connection to your business, it is possible to target through a “Thank You page.”

For example, let's say that you are selling a sippy cup leash strap. You can go to the competitor websites that are selling sippy cups.  Whoever bought a sippy cup will likely need a sippy cup strap. It’s a great gadget to attach cups to the stroller, high chair, car seats, etc.

Visit websites selling sippy cups and go to the product's Thank You page. Once you have the “Thank You page” of the product, you should place the URL to the Audience custom segment. Of course, there can be more of them.

Use catchy headlines like “ Have one at home, take another on the go! ” or “ You will be clipping it to anything and everything,” This way, you will be ready for your audience.

To learn more about advertising with Google Ads and how this platform can help your business, visit our Google Ads services. You can get a custom audit for your account or book a FREE consultation!

About the author

Kristina Bogdanov-Gligorov is a Google Ads PPC Specialist at Sellers Alley. Her previous work experience as a Bank Account Officer for Retail & Corporate Clients helped her adjust to Google Ads in working with clients and helping them achieve their goals. Kristina operates in various industrial niches and constantly improves her skills. She works on planning and developing different strategies tailored to the specific needs of client businesses.