Similar audiences in Google Ads is a feature that retargets users similar to your website visitors. Similar Audiences segments for targeting and reporting will no longer be generated as of May 2023. This means that you won’t be able to use Similar Audience segments anymore in your campaigns.
You can still create ad groups based on first-party data, but it won’t affect the results of your search ads or what you see when you log into Google Ads.
What’s Changing With Similar Audience?
The Similar Audiences feature will no longer be available for new or existing Similar Audience campaigns. Starting May 2023, similar audience segments for targeting and reporting will no longer be generated.
Any existing Similar Audience campaigns you created before May 2023 will continue to work as expected. However, any new Similar Audience campaigns you create will not be generated after this date.
If you want to use the Similar Audience feature after May 2023, you must create a new campaign with the same targeting settings as your existing campaign. You can then edit your existing campaign with the same targeting settings as your new campaign so that it uses this targeting instead of the Similar Audience feature.
Why Is It Changing?
Google Ads has been in the ecommerce game for a long time. It’s gone through many changes, but recently we’re seeing some pretty significant and durable changes from Google that will impact your ecommerce business.
Google Ads has become much more intelligent in the last few years. As a result, you no longer need to spend hours and hours on manual optimisation to get results. The new features of Google Ads are designed to work together to help you get better results with less effort.
Google Ads wants to upgrade to more powerful solutions such as smart bidding, optimised targeting, and audience expansion to leverage your first-party data signals and optimise directly for your business goals. It’s all about getting more bang for your buck!
New Features That Will Be Available Include:
Smart Bidding
Google’s new Smart Bidding feature uses machine learning to optimise your bids to get more clicks at lower costs. Smart bidding allows you to set a target cost-per-conversion — the maximum amount you want to spend per conversion — instead of a maximum CPC bid.
Google will automatically choose the optimal bid for each auction and serve your ads where they have the strongest chance of getting action. This means you can set a target cost-per-conversion instead of a maximum CPC bid, automatically allowing Google Ads to optimise conversions across thousands of different factors. You’ll get more clicks at lower costs and fewer impressions wasted on irrelevant keywords or poor-performing placements.
Optimised Targeting
This allows you to understand better who is most likely to convert into a customer. You can use this knowledge when creating audiences that meet specific criteria like job title or location.
Audience Expansion
This lets you reach people who matter to your business in a simple, goal-based way. With this feature, it’ll be easier than ever to achieve your marketing goals with Google Ads.
What Could This Mean For Your Campaigns?
We’re all familiar with the saying: if you want to make an omelette, you have to break some eggs. Well, in this case, it’s not just eggshells we’re breaking. This change will mean that advertisers who haven’t opted for smart bidding and audience expansion will no longer be able to target new audiences as effectively as those who have.
Smart bidding allows you to bid more competitively on your most valuable keywords (those that convert) while ignoring the less valuable ones (those that don’t). With audience expansion, you can reach beyond existing audiences by expanding them by several points.
Simply put: if you haven’t opted for smart bidding or audience expansion on your campaigns yet, then there’s no time like the present!
What’s Next For Your Account?
When you’re looking to stay ahead of the game, it’s essential to keep up with the shifts in your industry. What was once a valuable signal can soon become irrelevant—and vice versa. That’s why optimising your Google Ads campaigns is crucial so you can reach the right audience at the right time.
One way to do that is through Smart Bidding, which uses machine learning to help manage your ads. Smart bidding will take over Manual Bidding as an option for Search campaigns and regular Shopping campaigns.
It will also include all Customer Match lists (untargeted as well) by default in its targeting options for any campaign unless you have opted out at the account level.
Enable Optimised Targeting – Optimised targeting allows advertisers to reach relevant audiences based on their online or offline behaviour without paying for irrelevant clicks or impressions from people who aren’t interested in their products or services. It’s also available across all devices: desktop, mobile, and tablet.
If you want to drive awareness for your business, you’ll want to expand your reach by enabling audience expansion. This will let you target additional people who are likely to be interested in your products or services based on their interests, demographics, and other Google Ads data.
For example, if you’re running an ad campaign for a dental office and want more people in the area to see it, you could expand your targeting by age and gender.
Conclusion
We hope you’ve enjoyed this post! We know many people are concerned about these changes, and we’re here to help. If you see any of the symptoms listed above and would like a second opinion on how to proceed, please reach out.
We’d be happy to offer our expertise on your account or to give advice on the best course of action in the future. If you have any questions or would like to learn more, don’t hesitate to reach out. We are always happy to help with all things Google Ads!
