New Custom Audiences in Google Ads

Jill Goldstein - October 30, 2020

One of the most important aspects of digital campaigns is your audience. Who do you want seeing your ads, and how are you going to reach them? Google recently simplified that very process with their new custom audiences.

Previously, Google offered both custom intent and custom affinity audiences to help reach people based on the topics they are actively researching or their general interests and passions. As of September of 2020, these two features have been combined into one simplified solution: Custom Audiences.

Custom Audiences can be utilized for campaigns optimizing towards the goals of awareness, consideration or conversions and is available to use across your Display, Discovery and YouTube campaigns.

To create a Custom Audience, follow the following steps:

Step 1: When creating a campaign, navigate to the Audiences section, select Your Custom Audiences and click the + Custom Audience link.

Step 2: Choose to target people based on their interests or purchase intentions or by people who searched specific terms on Google and add those in as keywords in the open field.

BONUS: You can also expand your Custom Audience by adding in people who browse types of websites, use types of apps and/or visited certain places.

Step 3: As you add your keywords, websites, apps and/or places. Keep an eye on the Audience Insights to the right as your estimated audience size will adjust based on what you include. Also note that you can change the campaign type, geo and language to get a more accurate estimate.

Step 4: Save the audience.

Last, if you have a legacy Custom Affinity or Custom Intent audience within an active campaign, no changes are needed at this time. However, keep in mind that Google will automatically migrate these audiences to the Custom Audience type. Here’s how:

If you are a MoreVisibility client and would like more information about Custom Audiences or audience targeting, contact your Client Strategist. If you are not a MoreVisibility client and would like additional information, please contact the experts at MoreVisibility.