Best practices for setting up display remarketing lists

Search Ads 360 can create remarketing lists of audiences who have clicked on paid-search ads that are associated with specific keywords. You can then use the lists across ad exchanges—via Display & Video 360 or the Google Display Network (GDN)—to target advertising to those audiences.

In May 2021, Search Ads 360 ended support for building search-to-display remarketing lists and stopped adding customers to audience lists.

Best practices for setting up display remarketing lists

• Have your display, social, and search-marketing teams meet to align their strategies.

  • Discuss existing and planned display campaigns. Make sure all teams understand the goals and the creatives that are used in the campaigns.

  • Discuss existing search campaigns. Consider ways of clustering keywords to provide the display team with relevant cookie lists.

  • Generate pre and post implementation reports to show how the feature has an incremental benefit on search and social campaigns too.

• Leverage cross-engine data: To remarket to non-Google users, when you set up remarketing lists in Search Ads 360, apply remarketing labels to campaigns, keywords, or other items in your non-Google Ads engine accounts as well as your Google Ads engine accounts.

• Geo-targeting: Create remarketing lists for specific geographic areas, then use the lists for specific promotions or geo-targeted product/services:

  1. Create labels for the geographic areas you're targeting.

  2. Apply the labels to the keywords, product groups, or Google Ads dynamic ad targets you use in specific geographic areas.
     If you've created campaigns or ad groups that target specific geographies, you can apply the remarketing labels to the campaigns or ad groups instead of individual keywords.

  3. Set up remarketing lists in Search Ads 360 for the geo labels.

• Interest-based targeting: Cookie lists based on interests are highly tailored and can be leveraged in the GDN and Display & Video 360 to narrow down the segment audience to just those users who have already shown a specific interest of a product/service/brand of yours and improve your performance KPIs. To remarket based on interest:

  1. Create a label for each specific area of interest you're targeting.

  2. Apply the interest-based labels to the appropriate keywords.

  3. Set up remarketing lists in Search Ads 360 for the interest-based keywords.

  If you've organized campaigns around specific products, services, or brands:

  1. Create labels for each product, service, or brand and apply them to the appropriate campaigns.

  2. Set up remarketing lists in Search Ads 360 for the product, service, or brand.

• Use Google Analytics data and remarketing lists: Retarget users based on average quality performance data to improve Display & Video 360 and GDN display campaign ROI and brand awareness goals.

  Collaborate with the Display performance team in your company on how to leverage GA data for Remarketing on Display:

  • Remarketing lists based on campaigns, keywords, or other items that bring new visitors
  • Remarketing lists based on campaigns, keywords, or other items that bring returning visitors
  • Remarketing lists based on campaigns, keywords, or other items that bring visitors spending more time on page