Google Ads Introduces 2 New Ways to Target Users in Google Search
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-ads-introduces-2-new-ways-to-target-users-in-google-search/330349/#close
This article describes two new features recently introduced by Google to target users in Google search.
Affinity Audiences
Affinity audiences contain users who have already demonstrated great interest in a certain topic. Targeting ads towards affinity audiences will provide advertisers a new way to raise awareness and direct consumers to their topic. An example of this audience is given in the article:
“For instance, let’s say you sell camping gear. To reach avid campers, you can pair an affinity audience like “Outdoor Enthusiast” with generic camping keywords. By adding this additional audience layer, you can reach people who are not only searching for camping products, but are also passionate about the great outdoors.”
Targeting affinity audiences has shown to be very beneficial to advertisers; Volkswagen recently targeted affinity audiences, and found that members of these audiences were 2.5 times more likely to make a purchase than non-members.
Seasonal Event Segments for In-Market Audiences
This holiday season, Google Ads is introducing a new way to target in-market audiences on Google search. (in-market audience: consumers who are actively researching or comparing products/services on a certain topic). The article gives an example for how this feature works:
“For example, Toyota used the Black Friday and Christmas segments to focus on shoppers actively looking for their next car. By using these segments the brand saw a 67% increase in conversion rate and a 34% reduction in cost per conversion.”
These new advertising features remind me of the topic of network-based matching markets for selling advertising we discussed in class. We went over targeted ads, in which advertisements are shown to certain audiences to improve exposure, but we didn’t got into detail about different methods of targeting different audiences. I think this article gives two great examples of specific kinds of targeted ads.