Advertisers using the Google Display Network will already be familiar with Affinity Audience targeting options. Google announced in mid-October that this feature will now be rolled out to Google Search also, with a number of advertisers seeing the new feature in their accounts this week.
In their announcement, Google said;
“Affinity audiences helps you raise awareness and drive consideration among people who have a strong interest in your products.”
Affinity audiences are typically used to reach top-of-funnel users who have an affinity to your brand, products, and services. Google used the example of a retailer selling camping gear. To reach avid campers, advertisers will now be able to target an affinity audience like ‘Outdoor Enthusiasts’.
Advertisers will be able to use affinity audience targeting alongside existing targeting options, including remarking lists, similar audiences, and in-market audiences, which have all been a feature in Google Search for some time.
Like in-market audiences (which allow advertisers to target users already actively searching for their product or service), affinity audiences can be applied with either the ‘targeting’ or ‘observation’ setting.
This allows for a couple of different approaches;
- Targeting: target only affinity and/or in-market audiences with broader keywords to increase the reach of your search campaigns among high-intent audiences
or
- Observation: apply affinity and/or in-market audiences with bid adjustments to ensure higher visibility for these users (while still targeting all users searching for your keywords).
Impression will be testing affinity audiences in search campaigns over the next few weeks and will be sharing the results!
To find out how we could help your business, or to discuss your existing campaigns and how we can improve them, get in touch today.
