About your data segments for Search ads

To provide a comprehensive and consolidated view of your audiences and make audience management and optimisation simpler, you’ll find the following improvements in Google Ads:

  • New audience reporting
    Detailed reporting about audience demographics, segments and exclusions is now consolidated in one place. Click the Campaigns icon Campaigns icon and open the 'Audiences, keywords and content' tab and click Audiences. You can also easily manage your audiences from this report page. Learn more About audience reporting.
  • New terms
    We’re using new terms on your audience report and throughout Google Ads. For example, 'audience types' (these include custom, in-market and affinity) are now referred to as audience segments and 'remarketing' is now referred to as 'your data'. Learn more about the Updates to audience terms and phrases.

Customise your search campaign for people who have previously visited your site, and tailor your bids and ads to these visitors when they're searching on Google and search partner sites.

How it works

You can create audience segments to target with your Search ads that include people who have left your website without buying anything. Your Search ads will then help you connect with these potential customers when they continue looking for what they need using Google Search. Set your bids, create ads or select keywords, bearing in mind that these potential customers have previously visited your website.

There are two basic strategies for using your data segments with Search ads:

  • You can optimise bids for your existing keywords for your website visitors and app users. For example, you can increase your bid by 25% for those who previously visited your website in the last 30 days. Or, you could show a different ad to site visitors who have placed items in a shopping basket but have not purchased them.
  • You can bid on keywords that you don't normally bid on, just for people who have recently visited your site or who have converted on your site in the past. This can help you increase your sales. For example, you could bid on more broad keywords only for people who have previously purchased from your site.

Bear in mind: The membership limit for these lists is capped at 540 days. Learn more about your data segments.

How to set up your segments

To start using your data segments for Search ads, create your website visitor data segment and add a snippet of code that you get from Google Ads, called a tag, to your site. You can add the new tag to every page in your site. The code tells Google Ads to add every site visitor to your segment. When people visit your homepage, for example, the cookies associated with their browsers are added to the segment.

Once the tag is added to your site, you can add the segment that includes your website visitors and app users to your existing campaigns and ad groups, and raise and lower your bids for these potential customers.

You can also create a custom combination segment to target visitors who viewed certain pages on your website.

Bear in mind: A segment that includes your website visitors or app users for Google Search ads needs to have a minimum number of 1,000 cookies before the segment can be used to tailor your Search ads. This helps protect the privacy of those who make up your segment.

Learn more about how to Set up your data segments for Search ads campaign

Example

People looking for running shoes visit a sports clothing website to check out the available styles, and look at the shoe section of the site. The site could add these shoppers to a "Shoe category" list. Then, for example, the site could bid more for these visitors next time they search for running shoes on Google.

How an advertiser used segments that includes website visitors and app users for search ads

Tirendo, a European online tyre retailer, saw a 161% conversion rate increase when targeting audience segments made up of previous website visitors or app users with Search ads, leading to a 22% overall sales increase. Read the case study (available in English only).

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