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Demand Gen Audiences and Lookalike Segments Guide

Demand Gen campaigns offer Google's closest equivalent to Meta's audience targeting. You can target custom segments (based on search terms, URLs, or apps), in-market audiences, affinity audiences, remarketing lists, customer match lists, and lookalike segments that expand from your seed audiences. L

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Quick Summary

Demand Gen campaigns offer Google's closest equivalent to Meta's audience targeting. You can target custom segments (based on search terms, URLs, or apps), in-market audiences, affinity audiences, remarketing lists, customer match lists, and lookalike segments that expand from your seed audiences. Lookalike segments come in three sizes — narrow, balanced, and broad — letting you control the trade-off between precision and reach.

Process Flow

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Step-by-Step Guide

Follow these 2 steps to complete this guide

1

Audience Types

Custom segments: Define audiences by search terms they have used on Google, websites they visit, or apps they use. This is the most powerful targeting option for Demand Gen.

In-market audiences: People actively researching or shopping in specific categories.

Affinity audiences: People with long-term interest in broad topics.

Remarketing: Your website visitors, YouTube viewers, or app users.

Customer match: Upload your customer email list for direct targeting or as a seed for lookalike expansion.

Lookalike segments: Built from your remarketing lists or customer match lists. Google finds users with similar characteristics. Available in three sizes: Narrow (most similar, smallest reach), Balanced (recommended starting point), and Broad (widest reach, least similar).

2

Strategy

Start with remarketing and customer match for warm audiences. Add custom segments for cold targeting based on search intent. Use lookalike segments to scale beyond your known audience. Layer exclusions to avoid targeting existing customers with acquisition campaigns.

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