Google Ads Audiences: Types Explained

Over the years the Google Ads platform has evolved in many directions. One area that adds a ton of power and flexibility to campaign targeting is Audiences. The different types of audiences, how they can be used, and the sheer volume is overwhelming. The following is a comprehensive list of available audiences and an explanation brief of each.

Affinity – Affinity audiences are predefined categories defined by user interest. Google notes that “Affinity audiences have demonstrated a qualified passion in a given topic”. Affinity categories currently total 140 with new categories being added occasionally.

Custom Affinity – Much like Affinity audiences, Custom Affinity targets users based on their interest. However, Custom Affinity gives the advertiser the power to define the audience based on keywords, website URLs, places or apps.

Demographic Targeting – Demographics targeting isn’t listed as an audience in Google Ads. However, Demographic Targeting comprises very high-level audiences. These include Age, Gender, Household Income and Parental Status.

Detailed Demographics – Detailed Demographics are listed as audiences. Google describes Detailed Demographics as long term life facts. Users can be targeted by education level, type of employment, homeownership status, parental status or marital status.

In-market – In-market audiences are predefined categories made up of users actively researching and considering buying a product or service. Currently, there are over 750 categories with new categories being added occasionally.

Custom Intent – This is another advertiser defined audience. Users are targeted by inputting in-market keywords, URLs, and apps. There is an additional Custom Intent audience specific to Video and Discovery campaigns. This audience is defined by inputting terms users would use to search for your products or services on Google.com.

Installed Apps – Part of what Google calls “Interest categories”, Installed apps are predefined app categories broken down by device platform – Android or iOS.

Life Events – The users in Life Events have achieved an important life milestone.  Life events include themes such as business/job/retirement, home purchase/moving, marriage, and college graduation. For each theme, there are subcategories that can be selected based on the timing of the event – “Soon” or “Recently”.

Location – Location is another “audience” not listed as such in Google Ads. However, location targeting allows advertisers to segregate users by location – effectively creating a geographical audience. Location targeting includes Countries, A large selection of locations within countries such as cities, states, DMA regions, and congressional districts, and Map point radii.

New Mobile Devices – As the name suggests, Google has created categories based on identification of new mobile device ids. The categories are simply broken down by the timeframe in which a new device id was identified ranging from 7-90 days.

Remarketing – The Remarketing audience includes users who have engaged with your site, mobile app, or videos. User lists can be custom created based on their actions such as specific URL visits, site behavior, and user’s inclusion in a list that can expire based on a custom time segment. Other user traits such as demographics, technology use, and traffic sources can be applied to remarketing lists.

“Similar To” – Similar to is an automated remarketing list generated by Google. The list includes users that Google identifies as “similar to” users in existing remarketing lists.

Customer Match – Customer Match are offline remarketing lists. Google advertisers can upload customer lists with contact information. Users are targeted based on their email address of mobile device id.

Combined Audiences – Combined Audiences allow the advertiser to create “personas” based on a combination of audience attributes such as affinity, in-market, detailed demographic. You can combine any audience criteria to create a Combine Audience.

Custom Combined Audiences – As the name would suggest, Custom Combined Audiences allow advertisers to build a custom combined audience. This audience is specific to remarketing lists, however. Lists can be created with AND, OR, or NOT relationships. ‘Similar” audiences can only be used in a single “OR” relationship.

There are many different audience targeting options in Google. Using the power of audience targeting across different campaign types can greatly improve the performance of ad campaigns. With a firm understanding of these options, you are now ready to define and implement your target audience.