Google Ads Audience Manager | Audiences Segments, Data

Google Ads can be utterly confusing if you are a new or inexperienced user. What with the 14832 different terms, pages and tools? A 1000 different types of ads. We will help you break it down into understandable chunks.

One of the most important parts of Google Ads, or advertising in general, is the audience you advertise to. Google Ads has a [helpful] tool called Audience Manager that assists in management of Audiences across all types of Ads.

Before we delve into the various parts of Audience Manager, let us first decode the 2 often used and confused terms in Audience Manager - Audiences and Segments. What are Audiences and Segments? How do they differ? Where should they be used?

Audience vs Segment in Google Ads

As of Jan 2024, There are 2 broad terms currently being used in Google Ads - Audiences and Segments. First, let’s talk about what’s an Audience vs. Segment, before we dive into the deep end.

Audiences in Google Ads

Audiences are one of the core targeting mechanisms of Google Ads.

Selecting an audience is essentially choosing people you want to show your ad to (but NOT where you want to show your ad)

• Audiences can be used in Google Ads (of course)

• Audiences combine all of the different ways of hand-picking people relevant to your business

  1. People’s actions on Google in the past (Refer 1A. Custom Segments) | Similar to groups you join or pages people like on Facebook

  2. People’s actions on your own assets in the past (Refer 1B. Your Data) | Similar to actions that people take on your own Facebook Page

  3. People’s behaviour on Google and other owned properties, and not necessarily any action. I think of it as the holistic profile that Google has of you from reading your email, looking through your calendar, etc etc. (Refer 1C. Interests and Detailed Demographics) | Similar to a person’s Facebook Profile

Segments in Google Ads

Segments are primarily used for analysis, comparison, exploration, observation

Creating a segment is like grouping people based on certain parameters. Segments can be envisaged as building blocks for Audiences.

• Segments CANNOT be used in Ads directly. However, segments CAN be added to and then be used in Ads

• Segments are of 3 different types, see details in 2. Segments. Each corresponds exactly to the 3 pointers within Audiences

  1. People’s actions on Google in the past (Refer 1A. Custom Segments) | Similar to groups you join or pages people like on Facebook

  2. People’s actions on your own assets in the past (Refer 1B. Your Data) | Similar to actions that people take on your own Facebook Page

  3. People’s behaviour on Google and other owned properties, and not necessarily any action. I think of it as the holistic profile that Google has of you from reading your email, looking through your calendar, etc etc. (Refer 1C. Interests and Detailed Demographics) | Similar to a person’s Facebook Profile

• The most logical use-case we can guess of having Segments as separate from Audiences is that you can create small and specific Segments and create complex Audiences by re-using the same simple segments. For e.g. you can create an audience that includes people who search for Shirts, Pants, Dresses on Google (Within 1A. Custom Segments). Or all your website visitors + app visitors + YouTube Subscribers (Within 1B. Your Data).

1. Audiences

Audiences are target audiences you can use in Google Ads. The Audiences panel in the dashboards shows

• All your audiences

• Their Policy status (Eligible, Ineligible)

• Whether they are currently being used in any ads

You can also create new audiences to use in Ads here, or when you create an Ad. They all eventually end up here.

As you can see above, when you create an audience, there are 5 very broad and confusing options for you to use.

• 1A. Custom Segments

• 1B. Your Data

• 1C. Interests and Detailed Demographics

• 1D. Exclusions

• 1E. All Demographics

1A. Custom Segments

Learn about Custom Segments below - 2B. Custom Segments.

1B. Your Data

You will see ‘Your Data’ or ‘Your Data Segments’ in a lot of different places on Google Ads. It’s all essentially the same thing, and the root database is 2A. Your Data Segments.

1C. Interests and Detailed Demographics

This is the traditional targeting we assume to use in Google Ads. It includes

1. In-Market: People who are looking to buying certain products or services

2. Life Events: People who have recently encountered a life event like marriage or buying a house

3. Detailed Demographics: People who fall under certain demographic categories like parents or college-educated or working in a certain industry

4. Affinity: People who have shown an affinity towards certain things like watching news or being fit or racing cars

1D. Exclusions

You can exclude certain people from your Ads. Please note -

1. Within Create New Audience → Exclusion, you can only exclude people who have interacted with your business in the past, i.e. 2A. Your Data Segments

2. If you wish to exclude people based on their behaviour on Google, you cannot do that here, but you can do that within 2C. Combined Segments

1E. All Demographics

In case you are confused, you aren’t alone.

If you paid attention so far, there’s an option to include demographics in 1C. Interests and Detailed Demographics But this is different.

You use this section to “narrow” your audience based on your selections. Essentially this is an “AND” with options 1A. - 1D., vs is an “OR” in 1C. Interests and Detailed Demographics

2. Segments

Hopefully we now know what are segments, or at least know there is something called “Segments” in Google Ads

There are 3 types of Audience segments

• 2A. Your Data Segments

• 2B. Custom Segments

• 2C. Combined Segments

2A. Your Data Segments

Some segments are auto-created from your data, like

• All website visitors/ converters

• All app visitors/ converters

You can also create audience sets based on data from your own website, app, youtube or customer list. Or you can use a combination of any of these through the ‘Custom Combination’ option

2B. Custom Segments

Instead of using your own data (website, app, youtube or customer list), you can use Google’s data to create a custom segment

• Search terms on Google or YouTube

• Websites that people browse

• Apps that people use

2C. Combined Segments

This is not exactly an extension of Your Data segments and Custom Segments. This is much more similar to 1. Audiences. I fail to understand why Google needs Combined Segments and Audiences separately, but I fail to understand a lot in Google Ads, so let’s just try to use it and not analyse.

Within Combined Segments you can use

• Google’s pre-fabricated user segments based on demographics, affinity, in-market and life events

• 2A. Your Data Segments

• 2B. Custom Segments

You can also “narrow” segments or exclude certain segments, based on the same segments that you use to target. Note that this gives your broader exclusion functionality than 1D. Exclusions within Audiences.

3. Your Data Insights

Comparison of the segments that you create with your data in 2A. Your Data Segments against the general population data. It covers comparison of

• Demographics, Location Devices

  

  
  

• In-Market and Affinity Segments

  

These can be used to understand and target your audiences better.

4. Your Data Sources

Admin section that shows which data sources are connected to your account, and how many & which 2A. Your Data Segments are connected to those sources. Includes sources like

• Google Analytics

• Google Search Console

• Google Tag Manager

• YouTube Account

• Play Console

You can add additional Data Sources from Tools and Settings → Setup → Linked Accounts

This Google Ads Audience Manager summary should help you navigate Audience Manager with ease in the future. Keep tuned for other Google Ads tool guides!