Basics for Applied Audience Behaviors in Google Ads Search Campaigns in 2019.

This will be the year of the Audiences.

When it’s time to look back at 2019, marketers will look at this year as the year of the audiences. Many search engine marketing specialists have prophesied that very soon in the future Google will stop using keywords and only use audiences as the primary targeting for search campaigns. While Google might try and create a campaign function that is similar to Dynamic Search Ads, but for Audiences, let’s call it Dynamic Audience Ads for now, I think it’s too soon for that to transpire. Many advertisers would rightfully call into question why such a move would be put in place. Not allowing advertisers to use keywords to bid on searches that are relevant to a business is a major move away from the core product of Google Ads and search campaigns. We at Climb, as an agency with pay per click specialists, don’t anticipate keywords going away, but whole-heartedly believe audiences will be even more important in 2019.

Knowing that audiences will be even more important to Google Ads search campaigns moving forward means we as search marketers need to know the basics of how applied audience behaviors work.

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How to choose how your audiences behave in a Google Ads search campaign.

When applying audiences to your search campaigns navigate to the audience section of your campaign to see which audiences you currently have in place. Advertisers have three choices of behaviors for applied audiences.

Target
Observation
Exclude

When to use target behavior for audiences.

Target behavior is best used when you want your campaign, or ad group, to only launch ads to a user who falls into the audience applied. This means that if a user is not within your audience, that has been applied to your campaign or ad group with target behavior, they will not be served an ad even if they make a relevant search.

It’s recommended to use target behavior for campaigns or ad groups that are specifically designed for a specific user. If we were to apply an audience of users who have watched our 6 second video ad on YouTube, then clicked through a display ad, and we know from our historical data that user is ready to convert, we would then show that user a specific message to stand out from the competition to close the sale. We wouldn’t want that same message to be shown to a user who has never been to your site before, nor would we want to bid the same for that user, leading to the usage of target behavior this applied audience.

Observation behavior allows for bidding on audiences.

This is where the observation behavior really shines. You don’t limit the ability to show ads to users making relevant searches even if they are not within one of your applied audiences to your campaign or ad group, but you can increase, or in certain cases decrease, how much you bid on a user based on their membership in a particular audiences.

Use cases for observation behavior is when we’re testing and learning regarding a specific user group and/or we do not want to show a specific message that differs from users who have never been to the website before. In this case increasing our bids in our campaigns and ad groups for users who are more likely to convert would be recommended.

When you want to save dollars exclude audiences.

Lastly, excluding behavior for audiences applied to campaigns and ad groups can be used to ensure that certain groups of users do not see a specific message or allowed to be served an ad. Excluding an audience from an ad group can lead to proper flow with a campaign by ensuring that users in a specific audience would not be eligible to receive a search ad from more than one ad group.

For our target behavior example of having a specific message for a specific audience in a campaign or ad group, this would leave open the fact that we would not want that same user to see a generic message meant to attract new users of which we do not have 1st party data on yet. Excluding our specific message audience from our generic message ad groups or campaigns would ensure that proper flow and bidding on users would occur within a Google Ads account.

Use audience behaviors wisely for best results.

Knowing there are three behaviors to choose from for your search campaigns with distinct usage means we as marketers need to ensure when audiences are applied that we applying behaviors wisely. Contact us today to learn more about how we can apply audiences to your search ads campaigns today.