Page Summary
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Audiences and audience segments allow you to target users based on demographics, interests, habits, research activity, or interactions with your business.
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Using your data, such as website visits or customer lists, enables remarketing by showing relevant ads to previous visitors on other sites or Google search.
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Audiences intersect different segment attributes and dimensions like age and gender to create targeted groups, supported for Demand Gen campaigns.
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Audience segments, also known as user lists, group people based on interests, intents, and demographics and are supported for various campaign types like Display and Search.
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Dynamic remarketing customizes targeting by showing previous visitors ads with products or services they viewed on your site to encourage them to return and complete actions.
You can create and target audiences and audience segments to reach users based on who they are, their interests and habits, what they are actively researching, or how they've interacted with your business.
Using your data lets you advertise to users who have previously visited your website, used your mobile app, or who are in your databases such as Customer Match, by showing them relevant ads when they visit other sites or search with Google.
| Feature | Audience |
Audience segments (UserList) |
|---|---|---|
| Composition | Combines segments, demographics, exclusions | Groups of people based on interests, data, interactions |
| Campaign support | Performance Max (signals), Demand Gen, App | Display, Search, Video, Hotel, Standard Shopping |
| API resource | Audience |
UserList |
| Primary use case | Layered targeting, persona building | Direct targeting of specific groups |
Audiences
An Audience (identified by the resource name
customers/{customer_id}/audiences/{audience_id}) is an effective targeting
option that lets you intersect different segment attributes, such as detailed
demographics and affinities, to create groups that represent sections of your
target segments. Audience targeting is supported for Demand Gen
and App campaigns. For Performance Max campaigns, audiences are
attached as audience signals using AssetGroupSignal.
Audiences are made up of audience segments and other audience dimensions, including age, gender, household income, and parental status.
See the Audiences guide to get started on creating and targeting audiences.
Audience segments
Audience segments, also known as user lists, are groups of people with specific interests, intents, and demographic information, as estimated by Google. Audience segment targeting is supported for Display, Search, Video, Hotel, and Standard Shopping campaigns.
You can target audience segments directly by creating and targeting a
UserList. See the Get started with audience
segments guide to learn how to create and target audience
segments.
Configure targeting settings
You can use the targeting setting on your ad group or campaign to specify whether to narrow your ad group or campaign to only show to specific audience segments or on specific content you've selected.
Configuring the targeting setting for "Observation" mode lets you monitor and set custom bids for an audience segment without restricting your reach. Refer to the Targeting settings guide for more information.
Dynamic remarketing
Dynamic remarketing lets you further customize your audience targeting by showing previous visitors ads that contain products and services they viewed on your site. With messages tailored to your audience, dynamic remarketing helps you build leads and sales by bringing previous visitors back to your site or app to complete what they started. Dynamic remarketing is available for Display Network, Performance Max, and App campaigns.
See the Dynamic remarketing overview guide to get started with dynamic remarketing campaigns in the Google Ads API.