The countdown is on to Google’s latest changes to audience targeting. The first taking place in May 2023 and the second taking place later in the year in August 2023.
Rewind & Remind – What Are Similar Audiences?
Google Similar Audiences is a feature that allows us to target people who have similar interests and behaviours to our existing customers through Google Paid Ads.
This can help us expand our reach and find new customers who are more likely to convert. Google has recently announced several updates and new features that can help us further optimise our campaigns.
What Do I Need To Do?
If you’re a customer of Push, we’ll already be talking to you about some of the changes in new campaign structures and set ups and how we’re implementing new segments, SMART Bidding, audience expansion & optimized targeting.
While you can still use existing similar audience segments until August 2023, you can’t add new similar audience segments to campaigns and groups.
August 2023 – Then What?
In August 2023, similar audiences segments will be removed from all ad groups and campaigns.
The Future…. AI Led Of Course!
Google say that Similar Audience Segments will transition to a “more powerful, tested, privacy centric automated solution” – to summarise – solutions for us advertisers to reach relevant audiences as possible.
Optimised Targeting & Audience Expansion
In Google’s announcement, they say:
“You should turn on optimized targeting to reach additional relevant and expanded audiences and optimize for your conversion goals.”
Both options help in finding new relevant audiences that are likely to convert using AI across google platforms.
You can read more info about these changes on the Google Help Center post.
To Round Up:
Similar Audiences segments will be available for (at least) the next 6 months. If your campaigns are using these segments, you can continue to do so until after the deadlines.
However, you should still plan and test your transition to Smart Bidding and Optimized Targeting so the impact will be less harmful, please continue discussing with your Account Manager.
