If you use Google Ads with any sort of regularity, you may be familiar with this in the audiences manager tab.
Well, that’s changing. Starting in May of 2023 Google Ads will no longer automatically generate these audiences and on August 1st, 2023 they will stop running altogether. So if you’re using them, you would (or will be) notified by Google of the change that is coming.
How to prepare for the change
You can still create custom audience segments based on website visitors, app users, YouTube viewers, and CRM data. As long as you have your audience source and/or YouTube channel connected correctly.
To recreate the use of similar audiences, you can create a specific retargeting audience based on one of your sources (mentioned above) and then turn on “optimized targeting” within your ad groups. You can find that feature tucked away oh so conveniently under the ad group view > settings > edit ad group targeting > settings > optimized targeting
When setting up a new campaign, this feature is normally toggled on by default. So be sure that is set up correctly from the get-go (especially if you have specific campaign goals in mind).
As Google continues to push more automation, we can adapt by taking the best of the tools they offer and trying to control the rest. And to be honest, most of the automation features don’t bother me and normally result in higher campaign performance when optimized and used carefully.
Lastly, be sure to check out custom audiences in the Audience Manager tab. It’s a great way to give your campaigns an edge as you can combine segments, 1st party data, and Google’s audience affinities into a target audience that best fits your target customer.
