In the coming weeks Google will enable “custom affinity audiences” for AdWords to allow advertisers to better target audiences across the Display Network. This new option is meant to complement the existing targeting possibilities, “affinity audiences” and “In-market audiences”, in AdWords and to offer further flexibility.
What is the benefit from custom affinity audiences?
Using custom affinity audiences lets advertisers reach users with specific interests while they are surfing on webpages in the Display Network or the YouTube Search Network. Advertisers can choose between different categories like cars, sport, travel or fashion for their ad groups and targeting groups.
Adding custom affinity audiences is recommended for example for advertisers who wish to support their currently running TV ad and give it more reach with online ads.
With “affinity audiences” advertisers can create target groups with interests that match their buinesses philosophy or value like environmental consciousness or interest in luxury products. The targeting option “In-market audiences” permits advertisers to select from audiences that actively consider buying and have demonstrated their intention through visits of community forums or comparison shopping websites.
Avertisers from countries where affinity audiences is not supported or with target groups that are not incuded in the predefined audiences can reach users who are likely to visits their webpage by choosing “other interest”.
How does audiences differ from topic targeting?
Using topic targeting permits advertizers to show their ads on pages that match their selected topic. Using audiences allows to reach users with defined interests independent from the topic of the website they currently surf on.
How does targeting with audiences work?
Google uses data users have submitted on third-party-pages like age, gender, interests, demographic features and visited webpages to associate these to a visitor’s anonymous Cookie-ID.
Best practices for advertising with audiences for AdWords include CPM-bidding (cost-per-1.000 impressions), frequency capping to limit how often your ads are shown to an individual and the creation of mobile friendly display ads
