Audience Targeting For Google Ads

Google ads are one of the most valuable tools marketers and business owners have in their arsenal. To bring your products or services into an audience that would be interested, there’s no better option than creating a Google Ad campaign!

Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon for organic rankings to take a long time. This can be due in part because many people who try this method find that their content isn’t ranking well on page one or even at all yet – so they have no idea how much work needs doing.

If you’re looking to reach a specific audience, then paid search is an efficient way of getting in touch. But who they are and when greatly depends on the type of people or site that we target with our ads – which means there’s no “one size fits all” approach.

You might also be interested in HOW TO IMPROVE CONVERSION RATE BY GOOGLE ADWORDS?

Google Ads Targeting 101

Google offers two main types of targeting options:

Main Types of Targeting Options

Audience Targeting

● Demographics: based on data you have on your ideal customers, such as location, age, gender, or the type of device they use. If you think it’s similar to Facebook advertising or other social media ads, it’s because it is;

● Affinity audiences: targeting an audience who has a strong link/interest in a particular topic;

● In-market: targeting people who’ve searched for similar brands, products, or services to yours;

● Custom intent: targeting words or keywords relating to users most likely to engage with your content. This option allows you to add URLs on top of keywords;

● Similar audience: if you have an established audience, you can expand on it with future ads by creating a similar audience. Then, your ads will target users with similar interests, but who haven’t interacted with your business yet;

● Remarketing: targeting users who’ve already interacted with your brand, especially leads that didn’t convert.

Content Targeting

● Topics: targeting one ad to multiple pages based on specific topics. The pages your ads could reach are on the Display Network;

● Placement: target websites on the Display Network you know your customers visit;

● Content keywords: this is the most common form of targeting for search campaigns. You choose a set of keywords relevant to your content that users may search for. When they type your keyword in the search bar, your ad is shown.

Perfecting Your Audience Targeting

Now that we’ve clarified all the different ways you can show your ads to users, let’s focus on the audience target option, and how to perfect it.

It goes without saying that you need to select specific audiences in your ads. If your selected audience is too broad, the ads won’t bring the results you desire. While it may make sense to target the largest group of people possible, it’s actually much more effective to target the people most likely to be interested in what you have to offer.

Here are 4 ways to perfect your audience targeting

1. Research Your Audience

To maximise the potential of your Google Ads, it is important that you go for a specific type of audience. But this only works if we know who our customers are.

Discovering the right audience for your Facebook ads can help you get more leads and sales. Whether it’s through research or a small test, there are ways to nail this target market.

Once you have your broad audience profile, it’s time to segment them based on certain criteria that link them together. For instance, half of those in the first group may be interested in dog toys while another section is focused more specifically with cats and their desires for playthings like laser pointers or yarn threads instead. If only one type of toy was being promoted then this could work but since there are two different product lines involved then targeting both groups would not provide as much benefit.

2. Leverage Location Targeting

Location targeting is a great way for local businesses to reach out and connect with potential customers in their area. You can target those who live nearby as well, which means you’ll have more chances of getting seen by someone right when they’re looking around.

Audiences based on location can be targeted:

● Based on location only;
● Based on location searches only;
● Based on location interest.

Of all of these, the second one is the most relevant to targeting nearby users. When you combine location searches and interest in a specific location, you can then end up showing your ad to a person who is 2000 miles away, but just used your search terms that one time.

3. Use Exclusions

Many people are unaware that when you create ads to run on Facebook, there’s an option for exclusions. You can choose if certain keywords or placements trigger your ad campaign and ensure it doesn’t show up in places where it wouldn’t be wanted by the audience.

Running a bigger online campaign and want to run specific audiences for each individual ad? You can choose different target groups in your ads. But, say you don’t want those particular people targeted because they’re not relevant or useful then just tell Google “Exclude” and it’ll ignore them.

Exclusions are a way to avoid ‘money waste’ and irrelevant leads. Think of it as a filter that can help you define your target audience better.

4. Monitor Your Performance

You may have to do a lot of tweaking, but with the right monitoring in place, you can make sure your ads are bringing real value. Keep an eye on Google Analytics and Ads dashboard metrics for signs that things aren’t going well so they don’t waste money on campaigns without any leads.

You should consider starting with a small budget at first, just to see how these targeting options work. As you perfect your audience and learn more about what they like it’s possible that the money spent on ads will go up accordingly.

Over to You

If you’re too busy to get your own online advertising campaign going, we can help. Google Ads may not be the fastest option and they don’t produce results as quickly – but our team is dedicated so that won’t matter!

So if you want to get great results with minimal effort on your part, we can help. Reach out to Australian Internet Advertising now and let’s set up a meeting to see how we can help.