Google Ads Similar Audiences Going Away

Google Ads recently announced that sometime in 2023, they are going to transition away from similar audiences. This is mainly because they are focusing on new ways to collect audiences either by losing certain third-party data or focusing on their new privacy tools like the Sandbox. We’re going to cover the timeline on when they’ll transition away from similar audiences because it’s not a hard stop and then, we’ll walk through the alternatives we’re going to get depending on which campaign type you have. So, as we’re going through each of the campaign types, we’re going to show you how you can find these settings within Google Ads.

If we’re talking about similar audiences going away, then the first thing we need to talk about is when similar audiences are going away? As I alluded to in the intro it’s going to be a phase approach. We’re going to have some time to plan on this transition and it’s not going to be a hard stop. We will have time to plan this transition, so now Google isn’t going to pull this away in a month or so and then you’re left scrambling. So, let’s walk through the exact timeline, and I say this because they did give us a good heads-up. Advertisers will still have six months to use similar audiences.

Now, after the 6 months is when we really start to see the changes occur within Google Ads. Starting in May of 2023, Google will stop automatically creating new similar audiences. And most likely, if you’ve been running Google Ads for a while, you can probably see several similar audience segments within your audience manager. So, for all of the existing similar audiences that live within your Google Ads account, you will no longer be able to add them to campaigns or ad groups in May of 2023, and this will apply to Google Ads as well as Display and Video 360. So again, you cannot create new similar audiences or add any existing ones to your current campaigns and ad groups. However, if you already have similar audiences added to a campaign or ad group, those are still going to be eligible to run even after May of 2023 until we get to the next date and that is in August of 2023. This is when similar audiences are going to be removed from all ad groups and all campaigns. Once they are removed, you will still get historical information within your reporting to see how those audiences performed.

Now, the question is, what’s going to take their place? Because I know there are accounts out there that are running solely similar audience targets, and if they’re completely removed, you most likely want to know how your campaigns are going to be impacted and that’s a great question. There are going to be different transitions for different groupings of campaign types. So, the first grouping that we’re going to talk about will be how this transition will impact your Discovery, Display, and Video Action Campaigns. I have to clarify, not all video campaigns, just video action campaigns and again, this will be on Google Ads as well as Display and Video 360. These campaign types are going to transition away from similar targeting and then are going to be forced to use optimized targeting. This isn’t a brand-new feature within Google Ads and you may have seen recommendations of you to start adding this to a lot of your campaigns but if this is unfamiliar to you, that’s okay. We’re going to walk through optimized targeting right now.

First, Google’s going to attempt to create a “converter profile”. It’s just a term I made up. The goal here is to use real-time conversion data to try to expand to new users who are most likely to convert and then try to find users most likely to convert. Google looks at certain signals. Google will look at your creative assets. Google will look at the keywords that are on your landing page and then try to find those similar users you are trying to reach that can try to meet your campaign goals. In addition to Google creating these audiences automatically, based upon that converter profile, you could still add additional criteria like keywords and other audience segments to optimize targeting. But Google does say that if they feel that they find better performing traffic, they can ignore or not serve traffic to the signals that you feed to your optimized targeting.

So, now, let’s head into Google Ads and I’ll show you where the optimized targeting setting lives within your ad groups. Now, remember I said the campaign types transitioning from similar audiences to optimize targeting are going to be discovery, display, video action campaigns. If you are interested in learning about video action campaigns, you can watch this video here. That’s what I’ve started to create. I have a video campaign and I chose the goal of leads. So, video action campaign needs to have the goal or objective of sales, leads, or website traffic. You would go through the rest of your campaign settings but then, let’s head down to our ad group targeting. When we’re getting to the audience section, the people we want to reach, we now see a section for optimized targeting, but in order for me to see the true setting, I first need to add initial audience.

So, let’s look at adding one. Just going to name it real quick. I’m just going to pick an old custom segment, save this one audience. If I scroll down a little bit, we see I now have this custom audience segment added to this video action targeting. I know it says custom intent, I created a long time ago and there we see now that the optimized targeting button is automatically checked and this is going to happen for all of your ad groups. If you’ve never used similar audiences, this box is still automatically checked. So, you may want to go back in your ad groups and uncheck it, but if you are using similar audiences hence the point of this video this is where the setting will live. So, your similar audiences will be removed, optimized targeting will automatically be selected and then just like I did, you can always edit your audiences, add additional keywords to try to better feed your optimized targeting signals.

Now let’s walk through the transition for the next group of campaign types and the second grouping will be your video reach or consideration campaigns. You’re using video to focus on brand awareness. These campaigns will transition away from similar audiences in audience expansion. Now, let’s walk through what audience expansion is. Audience expansion will first start looking at the segments you have already added to your campaigns or ad groups. Then, Google has the ability to look at other segments like the affinity or in-market segments as well as additional custom segments and then add them to your targeting without you having to do anything. So, hopefully you can see the difference between optimized targeting and audience expansion. Audience expansion will be really focusing on the audience segments.

Optimize targeting is looking at real-time conversion data to try to find people most likely to convert. So, that is why the region consideration objective is using audience expansion. The main goal may not be conversions, it’s really spreading the reach. It’s easier for me to explain audience expansion by hopping back in the Google Ads. So, we’ll show you where the setting lives and then I’ll walk through an example of how it could work.

We’re back in the Paid Media Pros demo account. If you look up top, this is a video consideration campaign. Something I created for a previous demo so I don’t have any audiences to this. To find audience expansion, first look at adding or editing your audience segments. Since I’m at the campaign level, I have to select the specific ad group and then I’m just going to add one audience. When I did that, the audience expansion button appeared and then I could check it. So, if you are using similar audiences, this is where we’ll have to start going in 2023 once the transition occurs.

So, I have only selected this one in market segment. This is a default in-market segment available within Google Ads. I did not create this one, but since I have audience expansion checked. If Google feels that people in the social media enthusiast audience have similar behaviors or it’s better going to help me reach my goal, they can automatically start showing my video ads to people in the social media enthusiast audience. And as I said on the PowerPoint screen, it doesn’t have to be segments. They could be other custom audiences. So, understand with audience expansion, it’s pretty much a guarantee that your video ads will be reaching more people than the segments that you have selected within your main audience target.

One thing I didn’t mention in the PowerPoint slide as I cancel out of this is that your exclusions will still be honored. So, let’s say I didn’t want social media enthusiast. If I added that segment as an exclusion, audience expansion will still honor all of the exclusions. So, then this may add an additional step to advertisers who have to use audience expansion. Proactively, go in, find specific audiences where you may not want your ads to be shown and proactively add them as exclusions. It’s an extra step, but if you want to be a little bit more specific have a little bit control is just something that we would recommend doing.

Now the third and final grouping of campaigns transitioning away from similar audiences. The last grouping of campaigns for the similar audience’s transition will be your search and shopping campaigns. I save this one for last because it’s pretty easy and straightforward. Your similar audiences will be essentially folded into your smart bidding strategies and many of you are probably using some sort of smart bidding strategy already. So, there really isn’t anything that you would have to do. One of the biggest reasons this change is that we can already upload our customer list to use for automated bidding. Those signals are automatically going to be included in your smart bidding strategies that will impact expanding your reach for search and shopping.

Earlier this year, I created a video about customer match audiences. You could check that one out here and towards the end of the video, we briefly cover how customer match list and smart bidding can work together. So, you can check out that video to understand how you can update that within your accounts. That pretty much sums it up on how the transition away from similar audiences is going to work next year. If you are using similar audiences within your campaigns or ad groups, make sure you look at the campaign type that is using the similar audience and then understand if it’s going to transition to optimize targeting, audience expansion, or just be rolled into smart bidding. The sooner you know how those targeting options work, the better you can plan out how you may want to change your campaigns. If you have any other questions about this transition away from similar audiences, please let us know in the comments below.

Written by Joe Martinez