Screenshot from Google Display Network, October 2024
In-Market
In-market audiences are considered similar to topic targeting, but are predefined audiences rather than content targeting groups from Google.
These audiences are groups of users Google believes are actively researching, or “in market” for a specific product or service.
Similar to topic targeting, the available in-market audience segments are available for you to browse and choose the same way as topics.
Many have sub-categories as well to drill down to a narrower group of people if needed.
Adding this layer of in-market audiences can help narrow down who your ads show to based on those who exhibit research behavior in addition to conducting actual searches.
Screenshot from Google Display Network, October 2024
Life Events
Life event targeting allows you to target users who are exhibiting behaviors or indicators of common major life events.
Since its inception, the list of available life events has continued to grow and includes events like:
Purchasing a home soon.
Moving soon or recently moved.
Starting a new job soon.
Retiring soon or recently retired.
And many more.
Screenshot from Google Display Network, October 2024
Custom Segments
Custom segments have more recently replaced the former “Custom Intent” audiences.
These let advertisers curate custom lists of users who:
Have certain interests or purchase intentions (using keywords).
Have searched for any of those terms on Google.
Additionally, you can expand these segments by including people who browse certain types of websites or use certain types of apps.
This type of targeting is great for reaching users that meet a specific niche or interest your product or service is for.
Screenshot from Google Display Network, October 2024
Combined Segments
Combined segment targeting is the best way to reach your ideal audience if you have multiple segments a user must match.
With combined segments, these function as an “and” statement.
For example, you can include users who match a certain life event or in-market audience segment, and must also match another type of audience segment, like a detailed demographic segment.
Screenshot from Google Display Network, October 2024
You also have the ability to exclude segments to better target your ideal customer.
Remarketing
Remarketing is a way to engage with users who have interacted with your business before.
There are many ways to use your own data segments for remarketing purposes and leverage them in your PPC account.
Let’s start with the most common method: remarketing pixels.
Remarketing Pixel Audiences
A remarketing pixel is a small block of code that adds your website visitors to your data segments, allowing you to target your ads to these visitors.
With the data it captures from your website visitors, you can create custom remarketing segments to target in ad platforms.
Additionally, you can create criteria for these lists to only include a certain subset of an audience.
One very common list created is a “Purchasers” list, which means anyone who made a purchase from your website or submitted a lead form online.
This list can be used as a target audience or an exclusion audience for a campaign – meaning you don’t want these users to see your ad.
Another common remarketing list created is an “Abandoned Cart” list, meaning someone who has viewed the “Cart” page but has not completed a purchase.
Customer Match Audiences
Another type of remarketing list is Customer Match audiences.
These lists are first-party data segments that you have gathered from your business and uploaded to the ad platforms.
There are requirements on what available fields you can upload to create a Customer Match audience.
To upload a customer list audience, you can use any of the following fields:
Email.
Phone.
First Name.
Last Name.
Country.
Zip.
Mobile Device ID.
This list type is great when you want to target users in your CRM or those who may have not been cookied with your remarketing pixel.
Google Analytics Imported Audiences
In Google Ads, you have the ability to link your Google Analytics and Google Ads accounts together to import audiences created in Google Analytics.
Google Analytics has a much more powerful set of audience criteria, such as creating lists of users based on the amount of time they spend on a webpage or the website.
This allows you to leverage site engagement, sequencing, and other indicators to create a more robust remarketing list.
Screenshot from GA4, October 2024
Remarketing audiences can be applied to campaigns as the sole group of users to target or as a bid modifier layer called “Observation.”
If you’re looking to target only users in those lists, it’s important to choose “Target” instead of “Observation.”
Remarketing audiences are available in both Search and Display campaign types.
Demographics
Demographic targeting can be a great way to incrementally impact performance or ensure you’re reaching your ideal target audience.
These targeting layers are determined by the information given to the channels when a profile is created as well as the behaviors of the user.
Overall, these targeting options are best leveraged as incremental layers to modify the other targeting options listed above rather than being used alone.
Age & Gender
Demographic information is available for targeting in all campaign types in Google Ads and Microsoft Ads.
Both channels support bid modifiers for a user’s age and gender.
These targeting options allow you to see how your ads are performing for a certain group of users, and then adjust bid modifiers up or down to increase or decrease your bids on those groups of users.
Screenshot from Google Ads, October 2024
Household Income
Google Ads has an additional demographic lever available for users living in the United States: Household Income.
The data for these groups is determined by the location’s average household income, so it’s not a perfect science, but this can be a great lever to pull if you’re trying to target users based on income.
This targeting option lives in the Audiences section of the Google Ads interface and can be adjusted similarly to Age and Gender segments.
Screenshot from Google Ads, October 2024
In Summary
Ultimately, PPC targeting is about delivering your message to the right people – at the right time, with the right relevance.
From demographic specifics to behavioral insights, leveraging the diverse targeting tools available can turn a good campaign into a great one.
The more you fine-tune your approach, the more likely your ads will convert.
Don’t be afraid to test and tweak your targeting methods – sometimes, small changes make a huge difference.
More resources:
Featured Image: Sammby/Shutterstock