Google Launches Similar Audiences Feature for Search Ads

Google's similar audiences feature is now out of beta and available for Search Ads and Google Shopping Ads

Similar audiences is a nifty idea which lets you target your ads not just at the people you know are interested in your products or services, but also at people who share the same characteristics as those who've shown an interest.

So how does it work? Similar audiences for display works by matching the interests of people who've visited your site to people with the same interests, but who haven't visited your site. In theory, these should be the people most interested in your products. But as of this week, the new matched audiences feature also works to match with people based on their search history. The easiest way to explain this is with an example. If you had an online store selling gardening tools, you could set up ads to target people interested in gardening, or you could use similar audiences to target people who search terms that led to purchases on your site in the past. For example, similar audiences might target people searching 'Heavy Duty Shears', 'Large wooden spade' or 'Gardening Fleece' because those were the terms which people searched and then purchased. This means you could target people who've shown interested by searching 'Large wooden spade' in the past, but who haven' converted. Once someone identified as a similar audience based on their search history visits your site they will be removed from the matched audience list, so you don't waste money targeting them after they've visited.

Major brands involved in the beta test found similar audiences highly effective

Google let a number of brands beta test the new product, and many of these found the product highly effective. The head of Digital Marketing at Chrysler reported that “In less than two months, similar audiences for search delivered an 11 percent increase in clickthrough rate and 22 percent more conversions across our test campaigns.”

John Deere, the farming good supplier reported that: “We’ve been really pleased with the outcome of similar audiences for search after witnessing a 300% increase in clickthrough rate and a 31% increase in conversion volume. It’s been a huge help in reaching brand new consumers throughout the research and purchase process.” Game stop also reported a 30% increase in conversion rate when using similar audiences with Google shopping ads.

These are great endorsements, but of course, should always be taken with a pinch of salt given that they are a select sample provided by Google, and Google is trying to sell its ad product.

The ability to match similar audiences is a useful one for advertisers and certainly is worth experimenting with. If you are already running Search Ads on Google I recommend giving it a try, since the product has been shown to ad value and Search Ads are generally more effective than display ads which tend to be the usual method by which similar audience-based campaigns are delivered.