Google has been releasing some very interesting, new features in the last few weeks. New columns (Conversions by conv, time), Lead extensions and now Combined Audiences for Search Ads.
Exciting times! I’ve been waiting for the possibility to layer audiences for quite a while but my interest was more on the Display network as I often wondered why you cannot cross over different in-market audiences.
Well, I was quite excited when I read some accounts can now use combined audience for Search and can finally layer demographics, in-market, affinity and other audience targeting.
I haven’t had a chance of actually building a combined audience as it doesn’t seem my accounts have this option yet, but looking at the examples I’ve seen online it seems very similar to Facebook audience targeting.
In a way, Google is giving us visibility and control on more advanced types of targeting that were already used by their automated bidding strategies.
“Machine learning will save time and deliver great results” says Google.
“We don’t trust what we cannot see, we want to see what’s the targeting behind the results” say the marketers.
“Alright, build your personas then, surely you won’t beat machine learning but here you go”.
Right, I’m going to far. Anyway, this new possibility will expand our testing a great deal as we’ll be able to use broader keywords on more defined audiences and different messages. Results seem to be promising, first testing by Digital Marketing Consultant Steve Johns shows an amazing increase of 234% in conversion rate compared to campaigns using standard in-market audience.
Looking forward to test these soon, let me know if you’ve had a chance to test them as well!
Elisabetta | Paid Media Specialist 