Target Audience Segments in Google Ads: The Lever for More Successful Campaigns

1. What are audience segments in Google Ads?
2. Why should you use audience segments in Google Ads?
3. What types of audience segments are available in Google Ads?
4. Combine audience segments with other targeting options
5. Strategies for using audience segments in Google Ads
6. So you create your audience segments in Google Ads
7. So you can measure and optimize the performance of your audience segments in Google Ads
8. 7 tips on how to achieve the best results and avoid typical mistakes
9. Conclusion

Who Google Ads hears, first thinks of classical search campaigns with a focus on keywords. But with audience segments the search engine giant offers another possibility for targeted alignment of ads and allows you to define which people should see your advertising. What exactly is behind Google Ads audience segments, how you can use them and what you should be aware of, you can find out in this article.

What are audience segments in Google Ads?

An audience segment in Google Ads is the grouping of users into a group based on certain characteristics, such as common interests or demographic features. Categorization is based on user behavior on websites as well as in apps. Audience segments can be used in all types of campaigns for ad deployment and thus are particularly important for search and Google Shopping Ads besides keyword alignment a further targeting option. If you want to use audiences in your Google Ads campaigns, you can use Google's predefined audience segments or alternatively integrate data collected independently.

In addition, the distinction is made between the alignment of ads to audience segments and the observation of audiences. With the 'Alignment' setting, your ads are only played out to people who are part of the chosen audience segment. The reach of the ads is therefore restricted. The 'Observation' setting, on the other hand, does not affect the reach of your ads, as the goal here is to collect data. Rather, by selecting audiences to be observed, you give Google the information about which users are of interest to you and where you want to get more data. This data is later the basis for optimizing the audiences.

Why should you use audience segments in Google Ads?

There are several reasons to use audience segments in your Google Ads campaigns. On the one hand, the use of segments gives you a deeper insight into your data and thus helps you identify new target groups. At the same time, you can also see which users convert particularly well and what they have in common. These valuable insights can in turn be used for the optimization of the ads.

The use of audience segments can also have a positive effect on performance. By aligning with specific users, ad relevance is higher and the likelihood that your ad will be clicked on increases. At the same time, the relevance and quality of traffic also increase, so that conversion rate and ROAS can also improve. All in all, audience segments enable you to improve the performance of your campaigns.

What types of audience segments are available in Google Ads?

In total, advertisers in Google Ads have seven audience options available depending on the campaign type:

• Audiences with common interests: If you want to play ads to users with certain interests and habits, Google provides a wide range of interest areas with this option.
• Detailed demographic characteristics: With this audience option you can align ads based on age, gender, or household income, among other things.
• Life events: Do you want to reach people who have just bought a house or are planning to get married? With audience segments of the life events option, users can be addressed who are just before or after an important life event.
• Ready-to-buy audiences: With this audience option, search engine advertising can be targeted at people who Google classifies as ready to buy based on their search and usage behavior. These are also provided by Google just like the previously mentioned segments.
• Custom segments: If none of the audience segments listed so far are suitable, you can also create your own audiences based on self-defined interests or purchase intentions, used search terms, visited websites or used apps.
• Self-Collected Data: This segment is more commonly known under the term remarketing audiences. Here you can provide Google with user data that you collect yourself and thus, for example, re-approach website visitors or existing customers. Of course, all applicable data protection regulations must be observed.
• Combined Segments: This option allows you to link target groups with each other to make them even more specific or to exclude people with certain characteristics from a target group segment.

Combine audience segments with other targeting options

As you can see, audience segments in Google Ads offer another interesting targeting option. However, advertisers do not have to choose between keyword alignment, placements or audiences. Rather, the targeting options can be combined to address users even more specifically.

By combining audience segments and placements, not only can relevant users be targeted, but the ads can be played out in a suitable environment at the same time, thus improving the accuracy and relevance of the ads. If placements are too specific, you can also use themes, which place the ads on pages that deal with the corresponding content. For example, a hardware store can align a display campaign with the ready-to-buy audience segment 'Do-It-Yourself' and at the same time choose suitable websites, YouTube channels and videos or apps in the placements section, or alternatively add the themes 'Do-It-Yourself and Gardening' to improve ad performance.

Combining audience segments with keywords is also possible and offers great added value. Because some of the pre-made segments are very generic audiences, which can be significantly narrowed down by combining with the right search terms.

For example, if you want to target users who are interested in luxury handbags, you can further refine the rather general audience segment Handbags by combining it with search terms like Chanel, Gucci or Dior. This is possible by creating a custom segment with keywords and then linking the target groups as a combined target group segment using the 'AND function'. You can use popular SEA tools for inspiration and research of suitable keywords, like the Google Keyword Planner or Semrush.

Strategies for using audience segments in Google Ads

You now know what audience segments in Google Ads are and how they work. They make a particularly positive contribution to campaign performance when used strategically. Below you will find approaches on how you can use the audiences in Google Ads to improve the performance of your campaigns:

Audiences as a data basis

As already mentioned, there is the possibility of alignment and observation when using audience segments. Which approach you should choose depends on the data base. If there are no deeper insights into the target group yet, it is worth placing many different segments under observation in order to find clusters that are relevant for you.

Once enough and, above all, statistically meaningful data has been collected, the audience segments can be analyzed and evaluated in terms of CTR, CPA and other relevant KPIs to see if certain segments perform significantly better. You can then incorporate these findings into your further strategy, for example by changing your approach or increasing your bid for particularly well-performing audiences.

Narrowing down relevant users in the search network

Especially in e-commerce for products with very high search volume, the additional inclusion of

audience segments is recommended in shopping and search campaigns in addition to the use of keywords in order to make the display of ads as efficient as possible. Especially with smaller budgets, advertising can thus be targeted at users who are most likely to convert. The same applies here: If your target group is already known to you, you can use the alignment option right away. If not, you should first collect data through observation to recognize patterns and then switch to alignment.

New customer acquisition with Display Ads

Instead of using search campaigns that are exclusively focused on keywords, advertisers can take a broader approach to new customer acquisition with display ads targeted at various audience segments. It is worthwhile to test the various options provided by Google and possibly also to combine them. Once meaningful data is available, the budget can then be specifically used for the segments with the strongest performance.

Retargeting Funnel Strategy

Your website generates a lot of traffic? Then you can integrate that in a retargeting strategy in Google Ads. Here, both the target group becomes more specific as you move further down the funnel, as does the approach to users, becoming more concrete and more aggressive.

This is what your remarketing funnel can look like, for example:

Step 1: You set up a target group with all users who have been on your site in the last 60 days and use this to target your general remarketing campaign in the display network or on YouTube. With this, you first catch the users to lead them into your remarketing funnel.

Step 2: In the next step, you create a campaign with a segment that contains website visitors from the last 30 days. Here the approach is now very informative to pick up potential customers with all relevant facts and provide them with all necessary information.

Step 3: In the last step, you further narrow down the target group, for example to shopping cart abandoners or people who came to your website via the second stage of the funnel. The approach is again significantly more aggressive and includes specific purchasing options and CTAs.

So you create your audience segments in Google Ads

If you now want to start directly with the integration of audiences in your Google Ads strategy, you can follow our step-by-step guide on how to create audience segments and add them to campaigns and ad groups. If you only want to use the audiences provided by Google and don't want to combine them, you can jump directly to step 3 'Add audience segment to campaign or ad group'.

1. Call up audience management and choose audience segmentTo create segments with self-collected data, custom or combined segments, you call up the audience management in the Google Ads menu bar via the 'Tools and Settings' item. Then choose the type of segment that you want to create and click on the blue plus on the top left to create a new segment.

Audience management in Google Ads, Source: Google Ads

2. Define segment details and create audience segment

The corresponding mask for creating the segment then opens. Here, you give your audience segment a name and define the corresponding criteria, depending on the chosen type. For segments with self-collected data, the data source to be used, i.e. your website, your YouTube channel or your app, must be linked to the Google Ads account. Click Save to create the audience.

Mask for creating a custom segment in Google Ads, Source: Google Ads

3. Add audience segment to campaign or ad group

Your created audience segments are now displayed to you in the overview of audience management and can be used on the campaign or ad level just like the segments provided by Google. To do this, switch to the corresponding campaign or target group and click on the 'Audiences' area and there on 'Add audience segments'.

Add audience segment to campaign or ad group, Source: Google Ads

In the window that now opens, you specify whether you want to add the audiences for alignment or for observation and select your audience segments. Here you can start with the categories (Search) or find the suitable segments via the search. Click Save to confirm your selection.

Select audience segments, Source: Google Ads

So you can measure and optimize the performance of your audience segments in Google Ads

If you have placed audience segments at least on observation in your campaigns or ad groups, the data is collected and can be viewed under the 'Audiences' item. Here you can see all relevant KPIs such as impressions, clicks, the CTR, conversions etc. broken down by the segments. Depending on how much budget you use and how much data flows in, you can conduct first evaluations after a few weeks. You should then make optimizations based on the most important KPIs for you. In the B2B environment, these are especially the conversions and the cost per conversion. If a pattern emerges that a target group has low cost per conversion, bid adjustment can be made. This means that you give a percentage for the corresponding target group by which your bid should be increased or decreased.

7 tips on how to achieve the best results and avoid typical mistakes

Tip 1: Clean tracking and continuous testing

As in many areas of online marketing, also when using audiences in Google Ads and especially during remarketing campaigns, it is important that the tracking is set up cleanly. Only then can results be measured correctly and decisions based on them be derived. Also: Test, test, test!

Tip 2: Exceptional use of audiences

Audience segments should be used in Google Ads without exception in every campaign at least for observation and later for bid adjustment.

Tip 3: Target accuracy

As already mentioned, especially the audience segments provided by Google are often quite broadly set up. To use audiences effectively, you should therefore narrow them down as much as possible, e.g. by using combined segments or combining with other targeting options.

Tip 4: Using different strategies for B2B and B2C

A common mistake is to choose the same approach for B2B and B2C. Because what works well in B2C can fail in B2B. Especially in the B2B environment it is much more difficult to create a demarcation to private consumers, which is why the use of custom target groups can be better suited here than, for example, working with interests. On the other hand, with the ready-to-buy audiences, there are already segments especially for companies like enterprise software, so in individual cases a decision must always be made individually.

Tip 5: Adjust the wording of ads

Another mistake that is often made is to adjust the audiences but not the wording of the ads. However, both are important to improve the performance of your campaigns through the use of audience segments. Based on insights from audiences, you should always keep an eye on the wording of your ads and align it accordingly.

Tip 6: Exclude audience segments

Just as important as aligning your ads to well performing audiences is excluding non-matching segments. If you don't want to completely exclude a segment, you can also work with negative bid adjustments, i.e., you decrease your bid for the segment.

Tip 7: Observe data protection regulations

What sounds self-evident is unfortunately not always observed: If you use self-collected data, it is essential that you comply with the applicable data protection regulations.

Conclusion

With audience segments, Google Ads offers an exciting targeting alternative to keywords and a good opportunity to collect more data and information about the users who interact with your ads. The segments can be used in various ways and integrated into your Google Ads strategy. So it's worth for you to use audiences at least with the observation option to optimize your campaigns.