Google Introduces Similar Audience for Paid Search

May 20, 2017

Collective Measures

Google announces new audience solutions for paid search to help you find your next valuable customer.

After a long-awaited rollout, Google announced that similar audiences for paid search is now available for all clients. Advertisers can now target users who show similar behavior to their own website visitors.

Use Your RLSA Data with Similar Audiences for Paid Search

Google’s remarketing lists for search ads (RLSA) has been around for several years, helping advertisers reconnect with people who have expressed interest in their website. Similar audiences will now make it possible to engage both new and more qualified customers. Similar audiences for paid search are built from remarketing lists, enabling advertisers and businesses to expand their reach and unlock new opportunities by connecting with more users who are similar to current visitors or customers.

An example from Google:

Say you’ve created a remarketing list of people who bought running shoes from your sporting goods site. Instead of helping you reach broad groups of people interested in “running,” similar audiences will identify that people on this list tended to search for “triathlon training” and “buy lightweight running shoes” before coming to your site and making a purchase. Based on this, similar audiences will then find other people with similar search behavior, such as people who searched for ‘buy lightweight running shoes’.

With similar audiences for paid search, marketers will be able to use personalized messaging to tailor ads to users who fall into similar audiences. Moreover, marketers will be able to set bid adjustments that can drive more conversion volume from audience lists.
How do you qualify for similar audiences for Paid search?

AdWords considers the following factors to identify which remarketing lists qualify for similar audiences:

  • The number of visitors on the original list
  • How recently these people joined the original list
  • The similarity of these visitors’ search behavior
  • As your remarketing list changes, your similar audience will adjust

RLSA must also have at least 1,000 cookies and enough similarity in search behavior to create a similar audience. Lastly, only website tag and rule-based lists can be used to create similar audiences.

What This Means for Marketers

  • Find new customers more efficiently: Similar audiences helps discover new audiences by automatically finding potential customers who are similar to users in your existing remarketing lists for search ads
  • Generate more effective campaigns: Similar audiences helps boost the reach of existing remarketing campaigns to drive more qualified users to your site

Information Sources: AdWords: Source One, Source Two & Source Three