In the evolving landscape of digital advertising, reaching new and relevant audiences who are likely to convert is crucial. Google’s Optimized Targeting feature is designed to help advertisers achieve this goal by leveraging advanced machine learning models. This feature is available across Google Display, Discovery, and Video Action Campaigns, ensuring that advertisers don’t miss opportunities to acquire new customers.

How Optimized Targeting Works

Optimized Targeting works by looking beyond manually selected audience segments in your client’s campaign. It builds off existing targeting inputs, including your client’s first-party data, to find new, high-performing Google audiences. This approach uses complex machine learning models to predict the individuals most likely to convert and reach them for you.

For instance, if you have an audience list such as your client’s Customer Match list, Optimized Targeting can take this list and use it as a starting point. The machine learning models then learn and expand from this initial input to identify additional high-performing audience segments that may have been missed.

Privacy and Brand Safety

In the current digital environment, where third-party cookies are being phased out, investing in privacy-durable solutions is more important than ever. Optimized Targeting relies on first-party data, Google audiences, and machine learning to function, rather than third-party data. This makes it a reliable and privacy-forward solution.

Optimized Targeting respects your existing brand safety settings, such as content exclusions, ensuring that customer acquisition efforts do not compromise user privacy or brand safety. This approach is also effective in mitigating the impact of technological changes, such as the iOS AppTracking Transparency changes on Apple devices, which restrict advertisers from remarketing to consumers.

Performance Benefits

Advertisers who opt into Optimized Targeting see significant performance improvements. On average, there is a 20% increase in conversions among automated audiences compared to manual audiences, with a comparable cost per acquisition (CPA). This demonstrates how powerful first-party data and Google audiences can be when combined with advanced machine learning.

Optimized Targeting is not only a solution for current challenges but also a future-proof strategy. It adapts to real-time conversion data, continually improving the ability to expand and identify the customer base intelligently. By using this feature, advertisers can achieve better customer acquisition results without compromising on privacy or brand safety.

Key Takeaways

• Automated Audience Expansion: Optimized Targeting works by looking beyond manually selected audience segments, using Google AI to find high-performing audiences.
• Privacy and Safety: It relies on first-party data and respects brand safety settings, providing a privacy-forward solution.
• Performance Improvements: Advertisers see an average of 20% more conversions with automated audiences at a comparable CPA.

By leveraging Optimized Targeting, advertisers can navigate the changing digital landscape effectively, ensuring successful and privacy-safe campaigns now and in the future.

Resources

To learn more about this topic, select the following links.

• Take a look at this best practice guide on durable audience solutions.
• Need more details on optimized targeting? Dive into the Google Ads Help Center.
• See what other users are saying about optimized targeting by joining the conversation in the Ads Community.
• Take the step toward implementing Customer Match with the playbook on the Partner Portal.
• Check out the digital marketing playbook for driving privacy and performance.

The following are the questions from this article:

This content addresses the questions and answers provided:

• Q: Which of the following statements is true?
• A: It builds off of existing targeting inputs, including the client’s first-party data, while being powered by privacy-forward machine learning models.

• Q: How does optimized targeting find new, high-performing audiences?
• A: Optimized targeting builds off existing targeting inputs, including your client’s first-party data, to find new, high-performing Google audiences for clients.