Search Ads 360 (formerly DoubleClick Search, and also known as SA360) gives marketers the power to leverage different types of audiences, from various sources, in order to show adverts to the most receptive users, at a time when they’re most likely to take action.

Following on from our guides to Google Ads and Display & Video 360 audiences, this post centers around how audiences in Search Ads 360 can help you achieve your media goals.
 

Types of Audiences Available for use in Search Ads 360

Audience lists from multiple sources can be used to great effect within SA360, including those from Google Ads, Google Analytics 360 and Social engines. 

Google Ads Audiences in Search Ads 360

Remarketing lists created in Google Ads can be synced with SA360 and applied at either Campaign or Ad Group level. This is important as remarketing lists created in SA360 can’t be used to target or adjust search bids.

Google Ads remarketing lists for search can be used in SA360 to target ads at particular users, and adjust bids for those users.

Google Ads audiences can also be used as exclusions, preventing members of that audience from seeing an ad.

Google Analytics 360 Audiences in Search Ads 360

There are 5 types of audiences that can be created in Google Analytics 360 (GA360), and leveraged by SA360, these are:

Funnel Lists

• Audience lists based on users who have hit the different funnel stages set up within GA360.
• Splitting users by which funnel stages they’ve completed allows you to bid according to how close the user is to converting.

Smart Lists

• GA360 automatically identifies the users who are most likely to convert and adds them to a Smart List.
• This approach leverages machine learning to target prospective customers.

Session Quality

• GA360 calculates Session Quality to estimate a user’s proximity to conversion.
• This audience capitalises on insight into on-site behaviour to allow targeting of users with high Session Quality.

Conversion Probability

• GA360 estimates the likelihood of a user converting in the future.
• This approach makes use of machine learning to target existing users who are close to converting.

Super Signals

• SA360 automatically assesses the performance of your GA360 audience lists and adds them as targets where relevant.
• This allows SA360 to adaptively apply RLSAs where they would have a positive impact on campaign performance. 

Cross-Channel Audiences in Search Ads 360 – Social Engines

Social to Search and Search to Social remarketing lists are available in SA360.

Search to Social audiences allow you to target users on social engines where they have interacted with ads in search results. Social to Search audiences allow targeting of users with search ads who have interacted with social media ads.

It should be noted here that impression-based audience targeting is prohibited by Search and Social campaigns. Only users who click ads will be added to these audience lists.
 
Keep an eye out for further details on this type of cross-channel audience in future posts, as we’ll be explaining how to enable Social to Search and Search to Social Audiences in SA360! 

Campaign Manager Audiences in Search Ads 360

Campaign Manager audiences can’t be targeted through SA360, though you are able to report on these, providing the lists are created in an advertiser that’s associated with an SA360 advertiser, and the list contains more than 1,000 cookies. Find out more on setting up search remarketing from Campaign Manager remarketing lists here.

After analysing Campaign Manager audience performance using SA360 reporting tools, you can create Google Ads remarketing lists based on your learnings. 

Leveraging Audiences in SA360 to Achieve your Media Goals

Step one is creating audiences of valuable users, but the real magic happens when you use these audiences to drive campaign automation and optimisation. 

Campaign Automation with Search Ads 360 – Adaptive Remarketing Targets

SA360 can automatically create (or adapt) remarketing targets based on performance. This feature evaluates the potential impact of adding new audiences to Campaigns or Ad Groups, and removes the need to manually add them.

The adaptive remarketing target feature can automatically apply audience lists at Campaign or Ad Group level, apply or recommend bid adjustments if a conversion goal or bid strategy is active, and remove targets if there’s no longer a significant difference between the remarketing target’s conversions and the Campaign’s or Ad Group’s conversions.

Audiences used by SA360’s adaptive audience feature include: 

Remarketing Lists based on Pageviews

• Such as users who have visited a thank you page after filling in a form 

Remarketing Lists based on Actions

• Such as users who have made a purchase

Customer Match Lists from Email Addresses

• Lists of users whose contact details have been matched to a Google account

Similar Audiences

• Auto-generated audience lists based on characteristics of users in existing audiences

 For more details on the different types of adaptive campaigns available in SA360 (then known as DoubleClick Search), check out this article by our Head of Biddable Media, Jenny.

Utilising Search Ads 360 to Drive Success

SA360 can be instrumental in driving media results and a part of this is providing automation features that free up marketers to focus on strategy.

If you’d like to discuss any aspect of SA360, or any of the Google Marketing Platform stack, don’t hesitate to get in touch, we would love to hear from you!