What are Google Ads audiences and how do you build them?
Google Ads audiences let you show your ads to the right people rather than anyone searching for a keyword. Instead of waiting for someone to type a specific phrase, you can target people based on what they are interested in, what they have done on your site, or who they are. Audiences make your campaigns more relevant, which tends to lower costs and improve conversion rates.
This guide covers the main audience types and how to build them.
The difference between audiences and remarketing
Remarketing (showing ads to people who have visited your site) is one type of audience, but audiences go much wider. You can target people who have never visited your site but match a profile: they are researching a product category, they work in a certain industry or they are preparing to make a purchase. The Meta Pixel guide explains the tracking side; this article covers the audience side inside Google Ads.
Audience types in Google Ads
Affinity audiences. These are people whose browsing behaviour shows a long-term interest in a topic, such as home and garden, technology or travel. Affinity audiences are broad: useful for brand awareness but less targeted than other types.
In-market audiences. These people are actively researching or ready to buy a product or service. Google identifies them from recent searches, page visits and content consumption. In-market audiences are more valuable than affinity audiences because the intent is higher. If you sell PPC management services, targeting in-market audiences for digital advertising services puts your ads in front of businesses that are comparing agencies right now.
Custom segments. You define the audience yourself using keywords, URLs or apps that describe what your ideal customer is interested in. For example, an accountancy firm could build a custom segment of people who visit business finance pages on news sites. Custom segments are flexible and work well when your audience is too niche for Google's predefined lists.
Your data segments (remarketing). These are audiences built from your own customer data: website visitors (via the Google tag), customer email lists (via customer match), and app users. Remarketing is the most targeted audience type because everyone in the list already knows your business. Our guide to remarketing explains the full setup.
Similar segments. Once you have a remarketing list of at least 1,000 visitors, Google can find new people who behave like them. Similar segments expand reach while keeping relevance higher than broad targeting.
Demographic targeting. Age, gender, parental status and household income. Demographics are available for most campaign types and work best as a layer on top of other audience targeting rather than on their own.
How to build audiences in your Google Ads account
Go to Tools and Settings, then Audience Manager. From here you can create and edit every audience type. The interface has three sections:
- Audience lists: your remarketing lists from the Google tag and uploaded customer data.
- Custom segments: the keyword-and-URL-based audiences you define.
- Your insights: a report that shows which affinity and in-market segments your existing visitors belong to.
To use an audience in a campaign, go to the campaign or ad group settings, open the Audience section and add the audience. You can target (show ads only to that audience) or observe (track performance differences without restricting delivery).
A note on budget
Audience targeting works alongside keyword targeting, not instead of it. A Search campaign still needs keywords that describe what someone is searching for, with audiences narrowing who sees the ads. For Display and Video campaigns, audiences are the primary targeting method.
Our digital marketing packages start at GBP 849 per month and include audience setup, campaign management and ongoing optimisation. If you want to look at your current audience performance, the free SEO report covers some of the same traffic-quality signals that indicate how well your ads are reaching the right people. For a full walk-through of audience strategy in your account, book a discovery call at https://victory.digital/book/discovery-call.
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