Google Ads is one of the best online advertising platforms, but if used incorrectly, it may not help achieve your business goals. A crucial aspect that requires careful attention is the definition of the audience, that is, the types of users you want to target.
Knowing how audiences work and which ones you can create is important to avoid wasting your budget.
Let’s delve deeper into the topic!
Types of Google Ads Audiences
We can divide the audiences present on Google Ads into two main categories : cold audiences and warm audiences.
The first are all those users who may not know the brand, have never visited the site, and have never interacted with any content. These are audiences that can be reached through parameters such as age, gender, and/or interests.
The second type, on the other hand, is represented by retargeting audiences, i.e., audiences that have already interacted with the brand, may have visited the site, requested a quote, or completed the purchase of the offered product.
For more details on the differences between warm and cold audiences, we invite you to read our article where we delve into the concept of TOFU – MOFU – BOFU funnel.
COLD AUDIENCES
Affinity audiences: the creation of these audiences is based on the use of interests. In this example, typing the word “dogs”, Google will show a series of entries related to this topic, such as: dog lovers or pet lovers.
In-market audiences: these are clusters of people who have a predisposition to purchase goods and services. By selecting in-market audiences, it’s possible to intercept those who are conducting commercial searches.
Continuing with our example on the topic of “dogs”, Google Ads offers various criteria, such as dog toys or dog products.
For both affinity and in-market audiences, Google explains that each user is associated with a specific category based on their online activities.
Furthermore, it’s possible to refine both audiences using demographic criteria, such as age and gender.
It’s recommended to use affinity segments when working on brand reputation and awareness, while in-market segments are more appropriate when the goal is conversion.
WARM AUDIENCES
Google Ads offers several options for creating retargeting audiences:
- Website visitors: to target users who have visited the site, possibly taking an action;
- App users: to target users who use your application;
- YouTube users: to target users who have interacted with your YouTube channel content;
- Customer list: you can upload a file with previously obtained data to show your ads to these users;
- Google Analytics: it’s possible to import audiences created on GA4;
- Custom combination: this feature allows you to combine existing retargeting audiences.
In a proper marketing strategy, it’s estimated that 80% of the budget should be dedicated to reaching cold audiences, while the remaining 20% would serve to maintain engagement with those who have previously interacted. This approach allows the cold audience to constantly feed the retargeting audience, avoiding saturation and the phenomenon of banner blindness.
How to Strategically Use Google Ads Audiences
In addition to using audiences as targets for campaigns, an equally effective strategy is to use them as exclusions, to optimize the budget and improve ad performance. For example, you can exclude from the lead generation campaign those who have already become acquired contacts.
Alternatively, another way to effectively leverage audiences is to increase bids only for people who belong to a certain created cluster!
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