Google certification: Reach Valued Customers with Search Audiences

Affinity Audiences

Affinity Audiences aggregates users who've demonstrated a qualified interest in a given topic, allowing you to access the people your product or service will most likely matter to.

Note*

Affinity Audiences, Detailed Demographics, and In-Market Audiences are auto-included and automatically used as a signal for conversion-based search bidding strategies. Even so, it's recommended that you apply these audiences to view list- and segment-specific performance and implement creative customization.

Scale

As users move between mobile and desktop, Google maintains a holistic picture of their behaviors, helping brands to reach users across devices.

Why complement your Audience strategy with Customer Match?

Diversify your audience strategy with a tagless strategy. Re-engage with customers you haven't seen in awhile. Reach customers who may not have converted online and aren't a part of your remarketing lists (i.e, customers who converted off your app or in your store). Reach customers based on their purchase history (i.e, customers who've made at least one purchase in the last month). Reach customers according to their lifetime value.

Marketing goal: Drive consideration

Each of the following solutions helps you drive consideration among potential customers and people who have interacted with your brand in the past. I'm-market audiences- In-Market Audiences is a powerful way to drive consideration among people who are actively researching the products or services you offer and who we've inferred are in-market to buy them, including those thinking of buying from other places. Remarketjng list for search ads- RLSA helps you reach people who have engaged with your website or YouTube channel in the past. Similar audiences for search- Similar Audiences for Search helps you find new customers that share the behaviors and characteristics of your remarketing audience segments.

Marketing goal: Increase purchases and loyalty with your existing customers

Each of the following solutions helps you reach your existing customers. Customer match- Customer Match allows you to upload your own data into Google Ads and reach custom segments across devices. Find your loyal customers, exclude your current customers, and expand to reach those that resemble your customers. Remarketing list for search ads- Remarketing Lists for Search Ads can help you reach those who were your customers in the past (those who've gotten to your website's thank-you page).

Note*

Each similar audience has its seed list members removed to ensure that no one overlaps between a similar list and its seed list. In the case of an All Visitors list, this would mean that the Similar to All Visitors list is comprised of users who've not been to your site before.

Customer Match

Every interaction you have with your customers is an opportunity to connect with them on their path to purchase. These interactions are taking on new forms every day, providing you with additional insights. But the evolving landscape complicates the once-simple approach to reaching customers and moving them down the purchase path. There are now multiple touchpoints and factors that can influence a consumer connection. But you already have something that can help! Your customer relationship management (CRM) data can help you understand the types of people who have a relationship with your brand, and you can use insights from your data to address your marketing challenges. Customer Match allows you to leverage your online and offline customer data to reach your customers and deliver the right message wherever they are, on any device, across Search, YouTube, and Discovery.

Policies and requirements

Google only uses data to serve ads as specified by your campaign setup. We don't share the cookie lists with any advertisers, including you as the account owner. A remarketing list must have at least 1,000 users on it before it can be used.

Surveys

Google validates this behavior using surveys and conversion data.

Reach prospective customers with Google's Search Audience solutions

Google's Audience solutions allow you to create audience lists based on a multitude of signals, then layer those audience lists onto your ad groups. This allows you to then condition your bids, creatives, and keywords based on different audience insights. In this module, you'll learn how the solutions Affinity Audiences, Detailed Demographics, and In-Market Audiences work together to help reach prospective customers. (You'll learn about Remarketing Lists for Search Ads, Customer Match, and Similar Audiences for Search in the next module.)

In-Market Audiences

Google's Audience solutions can tell the difference between interest and intent. Being able to identify groups that are in-market for your products and services is extremely valuable because it allows you to reach people when they're in the mindset to buy. This can result in a higher ROI than reaching customers that are only generally interested.

Identify the benefits of Google's Search Audience solutions

Google's Audience solutions is a set of strategies and products that help you reach high-value customers in the moments when they're ready to buy the products you offer. In this module, you'll learn how using Google's Audience solutions with your Search campaigns can help you reach your marketing goals.

So, how can Hiroko tailor her campaign to suit her various customer groups?

Google's Search Audience solutions allow Hiroko to create audience lists based on a multitude of signals, then layer those audience lists onto her ad groups. This allows her to then condition her bids, creatives, and keywords based on her various customer groups. With Audience solutions, she can combine the intent exhibited from search keywords like "bicycle sales online" with insights about those potential customer groups. This way, Hiroko can make more informed decisions to reach customers at the right moment, with the right bid and message.

Signals

Google's intelligent algorithms leverage behavior on Google.com, YouTube, Google Maps, Google Shopping, and more to identify repeated patterns of behavior.

Audience solutions in practice

Hiroko is the digital marketing manager at Your Adventure, a bike and adventure-sports online retail store. She's currently running a Google Ads Search campaign and anticipates many people searching for the term "bicycle sales online." These potential customers share various behaviors, interests, and characteristics. 1. Some have already visited her website and are in the middle of researching bicycles. 2. Some are passionate about outdoor adventure. 3. Some are looking to purchase a new bicycle. 4. Some have signed up to her email list but haven't made a purchase yet.

Detailed demographics use case

Imagine that someone has searched for the best toys for their toddler on Google.com, recently viewed the best recipes for kids on YouTube, looked for the Children's Amusement Center on Google Maps, and installed potty training apps on their mobile device. Our system would recognize that this person is likely caring for a toddler, and would place them in a Parents of Toddler audience. An online business selling toys suitable for babies aged 1-3 can layer the Parents of Toddler audience onto their Search campaign, so when they're targeting the broad keyword "toys," they know their ads will only be shown to a relevant segment of parents.

In- marketing audiences use case

Imagine that someone watched a video review of a car, installed the AutoTrader app on their mobile device, searched for auto financing help on Google.com and looked for local car dealerships on Google Maps. Our system would recognize that this person is likely in the market for a car, and would add him to an audience list of similar people. A bank specializing in automobile financing and looking to increase loans for potential car buyers might target the generic keyword "loans" and layer that campaign with an audience that's in-market for a car. This way, only people that are potentially interested in auto financing will see their ad.

What can Hiroko do after layering her Search campaigns with her remarketing lists?

Increase her bids on certain audiences Decrease her bids on certain audiences Create ad groups targeting generic keywords and only show ads to those who've visited her before Tailor her ad creatives based on the customer Exclude certain audience lists from her campaigns

How customers stay in control

It's important for your customers to know that they're always in control over the ads they see, and they'll always know why they're seeing an ad. Google values transparency and always puts the customer's privacy first, which is why we offer a user control called My Activity. Using My Activity, customers can see everything they've searched for, visited, or watched in a single place. It's their one-stop shop for ad controls, including the ability to update interest preferences and opt out of ads personalization. We're able to honor muting choices whenever and wherever customers are signed in, across all devices and browsers.

How does muting ads work

Let's say a person isn't into watching movies. If she wants to stop seeing movie ads on the web, all she has to do is click or tap on the [x] in the upper righthand corner. Her preferences will now be reflected across all of her devices.

Improving campaign performance with RLSA

Let's take a look at how you can improve your search campaign performance using RLSA. Hiroko is the digital marketing manager at Your Adventure, a bike and adventure sports online retail store. She's happy with all the traffic her site is receiving via Google Search, but she's looking to improve the performance of her campaigns. At this very moment, three different groups of people are using the search term "bicycle." 1. The first group has never heard of Hiroko's online site. 2. The second group has visited her site before, but is still researching different bicycle options. 3. The third group has reached her site's checkout page, but didn't fill in their details.

Meet your marketing goals

Now that you know how Google's Audience solutions can help you reach specific groups of customers, let's examine how they can help you meet your marketing goals.

So how does this all work exactly?

Once Hiroko tags her site with the Google Ads remarketing tag, people who visit will be added to her remarketing lists (in accordance with their privacy settings). Hiroko can then define different audience lists based on the pages these people visited and the recency of their interaction with her site.

affinity audiences use case

Say a person regularly views videos about camping, has recently searched for the best fishing lures on Google.com, and has researched hiking trails on Google Maps. Our system would recognize that this person is likely passionate about the outdoors and would place them in an Outdoor Enthusiast affinity audience. If you were an online adventure sporting goods shop, you might like to bid on broad terms like "adventure sports," but would want to to avoid potentially irrelevant traffic. By layering the Outdoor Enthusiast affinity audience to your broad keyword targeting campaign, you'll make sure your ads are only seen by people who are truly passionate about the outdoors, increasing the relevancy of your ad and the likelihood of conversion.

Remarketing Lists for Search Ads (RLSA)

Search campaigns generate valuable traffic to your website and can help you achieve excellent results. But not all user traffic is the same! What do we mean? Some people searching for your keywords may have already interacted with your site in the past. For example: They may have visited your homepage. They may have added items to a shopping basket on your site, but then abandoned it. They may be entirely new to your site, and have not yet discovered your incredible business Remarketing Lists for Search Ads allows you to serve unique ad creatives and set your ad group bids differently, based on past interactions with your site or app.

How it works: similar audiences

Similar Audiences finds people that are similar to those on an original remarketing "seed" list. The people are similar in profile based on the seed list members' recent browsing interests, search terms, and videos watched on YouTube. Our system "scores" people based on how similar they are to those on the original seed list, with similarity defined as interested in the same categories, topics, and products. Once you have lists of similar audiences, you can layer these lists over your campaigns and bid higher to reach valuable potential customers.

Similar Audiences

Similar Audiences leverages your remarketing lists to find new customers with similar characteristics as your existing customers. It can help you expand the reach of your valuable audiences, across all platforms.

Evolving to meet customer expectations

Think about how technology continues to shape people's lives and shopping behavior. They expect all digital experiences to be helpful, personal, and frictionless, providing a seamless experience no matter what the channel may be. Every time they turn to their devices for answers, they're expressing intent and reshaping the traditional marketing funnel along the way. Ads also need to evolve with these expectations. Successful advertisers work to close the gap by creating different segments of customers and building personalized and relevant experiences for each stage of the customer journey. Being useful and relevant is the only way to get customers to tune in.

How it works: customer match

Upload your customer data into Google Ads. We'll match it against the people who search on Google.com, and form it into audience lists. The upload can include various types of customer data (for matching), such as email address, mailing address, and phone number. Let's take a closer look at the steps below Segment- Segment a customer list based on desired marketing action (e.g., reactivation of lapsed customers). Upload Upload the list to Google Ads. Audience Lists The list is translated into an audience list and made available for targeting on Search, YouTube, and Discovery. Customize Creative Customize your creatives with special offers or incentives that are specific to this audience.

Detailed Demographics

Using Detailed Demographics, you can reach customers based on their activities on Google.com. These activities may indicate certain things about their lives, including parental status, parenting stage, homeownership status, marital status, and education status. Parental status - Whether or not they're a parent Parenting stage - Ages of their children Homeownership - Whether they own or rent their home Marital status - Whether they're married, in a relationship, or single Education status - Level of education they've achieved or if they're currently attending college

How Audience solutions can enhance your Search strategy

Variable bidding Keyword expansion Creative customization

What are some example remarketing lists?

Visited her site in past 28 days but didn't convert" "Visited her site in past 7 days but didn't convert" "Added an item to the shopping basket but didn't convert" "Reached "Thank You" page (converted)"

Keyword expansion

What Expand your keyword set to larger set terms and more broad terms. Engage the mid- and upper funnel for greater reach. How Create ad groups that target generic keywords and only show ads to certain audiences. Bidding for generic keywords can be costly, as it's not always a given that people searching for those terms are in the market for your product. Why you should care For example, people searching for the term "commute options" might not be looking for bicycles and aren't relevant customers for a bike shop. You may decide to create an ad group that targets generic terms like "commute" and only have your ads shown to people that have been added to an in-market list for "Autos & Vehicles > Vehicles (Other) > Bicycles & Accessories," increasing the relevancy of your ad

Variable bidding

What Layer at least one audience group on top of your Search campaign, and bid differently for that audience based on their value to your business. How Increase your bids on certain audiences: If you bid higher for certain audiences, you'll potentially have your ad shown at a better position when people search for you. For example, using Affinity Audiences, Hiroko could bid higher for customers searching for "mountain bikes" who are also passionate about outdoor adventure sports. Decrease your bids on certain audiences: Certain audiences might not have as strong a performance as others do, so you can reduce your bids when those audiences search for you. For example, using Remarketing Lists for Search Ads, you may know that certain past visitors have a low shopping basket average value. Bidding lower for lists that include such visitors may improve your overall campaign performance. Why you should care Ad auctions are competitive, and you want to make sure you're making the right bids when certain groups of people are searching for you.

Creative customization

What Reach different audience segments with unique messaging that will resonate best with them. Using Google Audiences, you can tailor your ad creatives based on the user. How You can build ad groups catering to specific audience lists and create bespoke text ads for those groups of people. For example, using Customer Match, you can create an ad that will show only to people who have signed up to your mailing list, offering them a discount for returning to your site. Why you should care The more relevant your ads, the better the user experience for your customers, leading to a higher click-through rate and better campaign performance! For example, using Remarketing Lists for Search Ads, you can create an ad that's relevant for new customers and only show it to them (by excluding all the people who've already visited your site in the past year).

Harness the power of your own data to reach your marketing objectives

You know your customers best. Use your data on them to upsell and cross-sell, close the deal with people who've engaged with your site but not converted, and reach people that are similar to your customers. Remarketing Lists for Search Ads, Customer Match, and Similar Audiences complement one another and help you cast a wider net to reach your most important audiences.