Precisely target your audience with Google Ads and learn how to optimise your campaigns to increase visibility, click-through rates, and conversions.
Thomas Haurum
If you want to reach your target audience with Google Ads and make the most of your potential, it’s essential to focus on your audience when setting up your campaigns.
This might seem obvious, but we often see businesses rushing to launch Google Ads campaigns without properly considering their target audience. Just like with traditional marketing, focusing on your audience is one of the main ingredients for a successful campaign. Here, I will show you some of the key aspects you can use to ensure your Google Ads are effectively targeted.
Most businesses know their audience, whether it is documented or simply a gut feeling. The more specific you can be about your audience, the more effectively you can target your advertising. Using a scattergun approach rarely pays off. We do sometimes see a few, but costly, conversions from this method. If you have burnt your fingers this way, consider it an expensive lesson learned.
That said, any data you have collected can still be used effectively. For example, there may be keywords you should add as negative keywords, or search terms that don’t usually convert but do so in your case. So don’t feel that your spend has been completely wasted.
When it comes to keywords, it is important to be thorough with your keyword analysis. We often see scattergun approaches that generate plenty of clicks but few or no conversions. On the other hand, in some niches, the chosen keywords may be so specific that there is little to no traffic. If you want to get a sense of which keywords are typically used, you can use Google Suggestions, which you can read about here.
TIP: Remember to use your own judgement – terms like “your-product prices” or “cheap your-product” may be a waste of money if your pricing is at the higher end. Equally, “your-product online” is not relevant if you only have a physical shop.
When you set up a Google Ads campaign, you need to complete a range of settings to get started. Within these settings, you have the option to target your campaign towards your audience across several parameters. By preparing thoroughly, you can bid differently on various segments within the same campaign, simply and effectively. This allows you to allocate your ad spend where it has the greatest impact.
If you are a local business serving local customers, it makes sense to target your Google Ads campaigns geographically. This way, you avoid paying for clicks from customers who are unlikely to purchase your products – for instance, why would someone from Lolland choose a tradesperson from Midtjylland?
TIP: Whether you sell products or services locally, nationally or internationally, it’s a good idea to split your geographical areas into smaller segments. This way, you can increase or decrease bids in regions that perform well or poorly. Your advertising budget should work as hard as possible for you. Rather than having a single geographical group called “Denmark”, you could divide it up, as in the example below (“North Jutland”, “Central Jutland”, “Southern Denmark”, “Zealand” and “Copenhagen”).
If you know your audience is mainly active at specific times of the day, you can schedule your Google Ads campaigns accordingly. This helps you avoid traffic at times that do not convert. Of course, these settings can be added or adjusted later, so if you experience lots of clicks but no conversions at certain times, you can exclude those periods to avoid extra costs.
Ad scheduling can also be used to show ads on specific days. If you are closed on certain days of the week, you can exclude those days as well.
TIP: Be careful when using ad scheduling. Before excluding too many times, consider whether there are periods when customers are in the research phase and only convert later. You wouldn’t want them to end up choosing your competitor simply because your ad wasn’t visible when they were ready to buy.
The best approach depends on your situation. For instance, a tradesperson offering 24/7 service is relevant around the clock, while a service company only taking calls during business hours is only relevant within those opening times.
If your target audience mainly uses smartphones, it makes sense to target your ads to mobile devices. By default, Google Ads targets all devices, which is often sufficient. If, despite recommendations, you still do not have a responsive website (one that automatically adjusts to the visitor’s screen), but instead have an adaptive website (such as m.domain.com), you can benefit from creating a special ad for mobiles that directs to this address. This can help you avoid a high bounce rate on mobile and save your budget.
If you have a mobile-friendly (responsive) website and you see good conversion rates – or have data or a strong suspicion that higher placement on mobile will improve your conversions – take advantage of this. You can set different bids depending on whether the user is on desktop or mobile. The optimal bid adjustments will vary from account to account, but in the screenshot below, you can see an example where mobile bids are set 25% higher. You can also see where to adjust this, either increasing or decreasing the bid by a percentage of your standard keyword/ad group bid.
TIP: Try creating ads specifically for mobile devices where customers can call you directly from the ad. If you have difficulty obtaining reliable data on whether this works, use call tracking on your website instead.
With RLSA (Remarketing Lists for Search Ads), you have the option to bid differently to previous visitors.
In practice, you can use your remarketing lists to, for example, increase your bids by 50% for previous visitors who have not made a purchase but are searching again on Google. This enables you to capture users who have already shown interest, but may have only been researching the market. If they return and convert, that initial click will have been worthwhile, compared to if they buy from a competitor instead.
In addition to bidding differently, you can also choose to only target ads to previous visitors. This can be especially useful for broader keywords, as these users may now be closer to making a purchase, having already researched and now searching for where to buy, without remembering company names. Of course, this limits your reach compared to targeting everyone, so it may be most effective for your broadest keywords.
Finally, you can create special ads for users on your remarketing list. If you have a particular message for previous visitors, you can use it here, while showing something else to new users. You might also offer access to free content – such as a sample of an e-book, a demo, or other soft conversions. For these visitors, you can create new ads focused on converting them into “real customers” – purchasing the full e-book or signing up for a subscription, for example.
If you want to target your audience even more precisely, Google Ads display advertising allows you to do just that. Display ads are text or banner ads shown on countless websites. With display ads in Google Ads, you can target very specifically:
Choose which gender your ads should be shown to, and which age group. If you know that your audience has particular interests, you can target those too. Advertise to users with a specific mobile device, operating system, or even those who are – or are not – on wi-fi.
TIP: Learn much more about display ads on Google here.
There’s little point in having the smallest budget in the world, but when your campaigns are targeted as precisely as possible, you will generally get more for your money. So don’t be surprised if your Google Ads budget decreases and/or your conversion rate increases. Is your shop ready to grow?
TIP: Save on your Google Ads budget by following these simple steps.
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