Using Audiences to Shape Search Campaign Performance
Audience targeting applied in a search campaign acts as an overlay on keyword matching. It allows us to shape who the ads serve to. For example, we might exclude certain age groups or income levels.
Negative Audiences in Search Campaigns
It may be beneficial to exclude certain audiences. These so-called negative audiences can also be useful in shaping campaign performance. Examples of negative targeting involve excluding certain in-market audiences, interests, and demographics. The latter might include age, gender, income level, parental status, homeownership status, and other demographic information.
Remarketing Lists for Search Ads
In search ad campaigns, we can also use remarketing lists as search audiences. This is known as RLSA, short for Remarketing Lists for Search Ads. RLSA facilitates serving different search ads to visitors who showed engagement in previous searches.
RLSA allows the advertiser to follow a user as they navigate their sales funnel journey to a conversion. Not just through display remarketing, but on search engine result pages as well.
Audience Configuration Should Not Be Overlooked
Search campaign audience configuration is an important capability that should not be neglected. When used carefully, audience configuration can support stronger PPC campaign management, more practical PPC performance review, and better alignment between search intent, audience behavior, and campaign goals.
More: See our blog articles on audiences, sales funnels, and PPC campaign management.
