How to Use Custom Affinity Audiences for Google Ads

Google Affinity Audiences have quickly become an asset to businesses of all sizes for reaching qualified prospects and boosting campaign performance.

I’ll show you how to steal your competitor’s customers using custom affinity audiences.

What We’ll Cover:

• What Are Google Affinity Audiences?
• Difference Between Affinity Audiences and Custom Affinity Audiences
• Why Should You Use Affinity Audience Ads
• How to Build Your Custom Affinity Audience
• Determining What Audience to Target
• Measure Your Success – Analytics & Adjustments
• FAQs: Google Affinity Audiences

Back in 2013, Google unveiled a new feature that gave advertisers the chance to target the exact audience they were looking for—based on their interests as reflected by their search behavior across the Google Display Network.

There is no shortage of ways to connect with your audience through Google Ads.

And with Google Display Network reaching roughly 90% of internet users across two million sites, it is safe to say that Google Ads aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.

This guide will serve as a quick rundown of what Google AdWords Affinity Audiences are, their advantages, and how to get started.

What are Google Affinity Audiences?

The success of any display campaign depends on several factors. But, ensuring you’re effectively targeting your audience is a crucial one.

Originally designed with television-style audiences in mind, Affinity Audiences is an ad-targeting solution that lets you reach people based on a holistic picture of their lifestyles, passions, and behaviors.

Affinity Audiences have demonstrated a natural liking, or “affinity” for a given topic, which means advertisers can connect the people who matter most with their products or services.

Based on the actions they take as they browse the internet, Google has determined that users within a particular Affinity Audience have a heightened, long-term interest in that category.

Using data like searches and site visits, Google puts them into “buckets” based on what it thinks the person’s interests are.

Using Affinity Audiences – An Example

For example, let’s say you work for a skincare company that’s launching a new, high-end sunscreen brand.

By layering the “skincare expert” Affinity Audience with relevant, sunscreen-related keywords, you are specifying that your ads will not only be served to those who are searching for sunscreen online, but who are also passionate about skincare products in general.

These users may be more motivated to buy expensive skincare products and are likely to turn into repeat customers.

The Evolution of Google Affinity Audiences

Ever wonder how “knowing your audience” became so precise in the digital marketing world? 

Meet Google’s Affinity Audiences. 

With broad categories like “Tech Wizards” or “Foodie Mavens,” Google aimed to help marketers connect with specific interests and lifestyle habits of web users. 

Pretty cool, right?

To refine this, Custom Affinity Audiences were introduced, targeting users’ frequently visited URLs or apps for fine-tuned marketing.

Google broadened audience types even further with Affinity and In-Market Audiences, targeting users actively engaged in researching specific products. 2019 saw the introduction of Custom Intent Audiences, offering an even higher level of tailored audience targeting. 

Today, Google Affinity Audiences are indispensable in digital marketing, enabling targeted and personalized ad campaigns.

Differences Between Affinity Audiences and Custom Affinity Audiences

While there are a variety of Affinity segments to choose from, as expected, Affinity Audience targeting can still be very broad.

Custom Affinity was designed to give advertisers even more control over their targeting options on the Display Network. Google’s Affinity Audiences come with some limitations, and the system can compel brands to box their audiences into categories that aren’t quite the right fit.

With Custom Affinity Audiences, you’re not confined to the predefined segments that Google has set. Marketers can create their own, highly tailored audience in Google AdWords based on their most recent web activity.

To create these audiences, you need to provide Google with information, including:

• What your audience is passionate about
• URLs that your audience is interested in navigating
• Locations that your audience would like to visit
• Apps that your audience is interested in downloading

Google pools together data from user search history, keywords used, and site visits, giving marketers a more accurate picture of a target user’s behavior.

Example of a Custom Affinity Audience

For example, rather than reaching the wide-ranging “Athletes” Affinity Audience, an athletic shoe company may want to reach a more specific audience. Using Custom Affinity Audiences, the shoe company can further define this audience by:

• Adding more niche interests like “5K in San Diego,” “marathon athlete,” or “endurance runner.”
• Finding URLs of websites that feature training calendars, marathon event updates, nutrition for runners, and other endurance running themes.
• Searching for places that a runner will be interested in like fitness centers and sporting goods stores.
• Entering apps in the Health and Fitness category that a runner may want to download like Footpath Route Planner.

Dianne Manansala, Lead Retail Search Manager at CPC Strategy, notes, “We’ve seen good results using Custom Affinity Audiences for branding and awareness, and these performed really well in terms of quality impressions and wide reach. Running against other custom affinity targeting layered with topic targeting has also worked really well in terms of impressions, low CPCs, and low bounce rates.”

Why Should You Use Affinity Audience Ads?

Google’s Affinity Audiences are game-changers empowering you to target ads to interested parties. Here are a few ways they’re becoming indispensable to Auto, Dental, and Healthcare industries:

1. Precision Targeting – Affinity Audiences target users on lifestyle, behavior, interests, and habits, ensuring ads reach suitable audiences. For example, auto dealers can target environmentally-conscious users for fuel-efficient car promotions.
2. Expanded Reach with Relevant Messaging – Affinity Audiences guarantee your ad messages find those with brand affinity, increasing reach. This would allow dental offices to connect with those interested in oral health for dental cleaning services ads.
3. Securing Prospects Early – Through interest and habit focus, catch prospects early in the buying journey, heightening conversion chances. Healthcare practices can target users interested in balanced diets and regular exercising for preventive healthcare services.
4. Brand Awareness Boost – Wider audience exposure through Affinity Audiences promotes important brand awareness.
5. Upscaling Cost Efficiency – By targeting interested users, get more return on every ad dollar spent.

Google’s Affinity Audience ads endorse precise targeting, broader reach, brand awareness enhancement, and boost cost efficiency. Use it well for wider brand promotion and greater ad efficiency. 

How to Build Your Custom Affinity Audience

Here are step-by-step instructions on how to build your Google Ads Custom Affinity Audience:

1. Log into your Google Ads account

2. Go to Audiences

3. Go to ‘Edit Audience Segments’ and select an ad group

4. Select ‘Your custom audience segments’

5. Click ‘+ Custom Segment’

6. Enter desired keywords

7. Go to ‘People who browse types of websites’

8. Enter desired websites and click save

How to Determine What Audience to Target

Understanding your audience is the cornerstone of any successful marketing campaign. Therefore, knowing how to determine your target audience for Google’s Custom Affinity Audiences is essential to your digital marketing strategy. 

Follow these five steps to master understanding your audience:

1. Know Your Product/Service: Clarify what your offering is and who will benefit most. This helps identify potential customers.
2. Outline Ideal Customer: Draft a profile of your ideal customer, considering relevant demographic information that may influence their buying decision.
3. Formulate Buyer Personas: Once you have an idea about your customer, create detailed personas. This should encompass more nuanced characteristics such as goals and online habits.
4. Leverage Google Analytics: Your audience analytics data can refine your understanding. Analyze existing customers’ traits and behaviors.
5. Set Up Custom Affinity Audience in Google Ads: With your target audience now clear, configure your Custom Affinity Audience in Google Ads based on your research insights.

By following these steps, you will be better prepared to accurately identify your target audience for Google’s Custom Affinity Audiences. Remember, the more specific and detailed you are in your identification process, the more effective your digital marketing campaigns will be.

Measuring Success: Analytics and Adjustments

Tracking the success of your marketing campaigns using Google’s Custom Affinity Audiences and making informed adjustments is essential for continuous improvement. 

Analyzing and Interpreting Performance Metrics

To measure the effectiveness of your campaign, pay close attention to these key performance indicators (KPIs):

1. Click-through rate (CTR): This indicates the percentage of ad views that resulted in clicks, giving an insight into the interest level and relevance of your ads.
2. Conversion rates: This reflects the percentage of your audience who completed the desired action (like making a purchase, filling out a form, or signing up for a newsletter) after clicking an ad.
3. Cost per conversion: This calculates how much each successful conversion is costing you, providing a measure of ROI.
4. Bounce Rate: This is the percentage of users who navigate away from your site after viewing only one page. A high bounce rate might suggest your content isn’t engaging your audience.

Making Informed Adjustments

With these insights, you can make data-driven adjustments:

1. Optimize Your Ad Creative: If your CTR is low, consider changing your ad copy or visuals to make them more engaging.
2. Refine Your Audience: If your conversion rate is low, review your target audience. The Custom Affinity tool allows you to make adjustments based on your findings.
3. Adjust Your Bidding Strategy: If your cost per conversion is high, you might need to alter your bidding strategy.
4. Update Your Landing Page: If the bounce rate is high, ensure your landing page is easy to navigate, contains relevant content, and has calls-to-action that align with the ads.

Measuring your campaigns’ success and making data-driven adjustments is an ongoing process. By continuously analyzing, learning, and adapting, your marketing efforts can become more effective over time.
<h2id=”faqs-affinity-audience”>FAQs:

1. Are There Trends in Custom Affinity Audience Targeting?

Here are a few notable trends in the world of Custom Affinity Audience Targeting:

• Layering Demographics and Location Data: More marketers overlay demographic and location data on affinity audience data, resulting in a richer and more focused target audience.
• Broadening the Reach beyond TV Audiences: Custom affinity audiences, initially introduced for TV ads’ online extension, now serve a variety of business objectives, including prospecting, reaching potential customers, and supporting upper-funnel goals. 
• Using Relevant Keywords and Websites for Audience Building: To boost ad relevance, engagement, and conversion rates, marketers are refining audiences using relevant keywords and websites.

2. Can Custom Affinity Audiences Be Used for All Types of Businesses?

Yes, Custom Affinity Audiences can be used for all types of businesses. They are suitable for all ad types and even cater to niche markets where standard Affinity Audiences provided by Google might be too broad. By using Custom Affinity Audiences, businesses can better target users online, enhancing outreach and effectiveness.

3. What Are Common Mistakes to Avoid When Creating Custom Affinity Audiences?

Avoid these common pitfalls when creating Custom Affinity Audiences:

• Unclear persona definition
• Overfitting audiences
• Ignoring engagement metrics
• Disregarding content relevance
• Not updating Custom Affinity Audiences based on campaign results.

4. Are There Any Privacy Concerns with Using Custom Affinity Audiences?

Using Custom Affinity Audiences can be a powerful marketing tool, but it’s crucial to balance your business goals with respecting user privacy.

Google and other platforms are continually updating their policies to comply with privacy regulations (e.g., GDPR in Europe, CCPA in California), and it would be wise to keep up to speed.

5. How Frequently Should I Update My Custom Affinity Audience Strategies?

Savvy marketers understand that Custom Affinity Audience strategies benefit from regular reviews and adjustments. A good rule of thumb is to reassess your Custom Affinity Audience strategies periodically (for example, monthly or quarterly) or whenever you notice significant changes in your campaign metrics. 

Get Creative With Your Strategy

Gone are the days when the only way to reach Display Network users was via keywords, topics, interests, and demographics. This isn’t to say that they aren’t still an important part of targeting strategies.

But the reality is that pay-per-click is becoming costlier and the competition on almost each advertising search engine results page is getting fiercer.

Targeting options like Affinity Audiences offer opportunities beyond traditional targeting methods, giving you more control over who can see your ad. Once you get your ad in front of the right consumers, half the battle is already won! 

Whether you’re in the healthcare, automotive, or dental industries, we’re here to support your business. 

Ignite can help you: 

• Determine what audiences to target
• Build Custom Affinity Audiences
• Measure and analyze campaign results
• And more!

Sound exciting? Reach out to us and we’ll help you set up your custom affinity audiences and master Google Ads.