Ad targeting works in a number of different ways. We use targeting to find the people who are most interested in the things you are advertising so that you can get the most out of your advertising – that means not paying for people who aren’t interested and bringing in more relevant traffic to your website for a higher conversion rate.
There are many different ways to target within the Google Ads platform.
1. Keyword Targeting:
The most well-known way to target is with keywords.
Targeting Text Ads to specific keywords. Paid listings will target specific keywords relating to the product or service that is being advertised so that when a user searches using those keywords, a highly targeted and relevant Text Ad will show on the SERP. Advertisers will select keywords that relate to their business through thorough research and by looking at the keywords that users are searching for, by using a special tool in Google Ads called the Keyword Planner.
From time to time, synonyms, dual-meaning and misspelled keywords can trigger a Text Ad to show that is not contextually relevant to the SERP results. In order to prevent these types of keywords from using ad spend and garnering unnecessary clicks, they would be added as negative keywords. Negative keywords will not trigger a Text Ad to show when a user searches for them and thus, Text Ads stay relevant and specific to the advertiser’s product or service.
2. Location and Language:
Location Targeting:
Location targeting is used when a specific geographical location is preferred.
This is based on the user’s (the person searching) IP address (this is an estimated location) when searching, as well as the Google domain they use (such as www.google.co.za, for example) and can be broken down from country, to region (you can set Text Ads to show only in a radius of a specific place), to city. It takes advantage of knowing where your customers are, geographically, and lets you show them Text Ads that are relevant to them and the area that they are searching in.
This is useful for many reasons, some good examples are:
Brick and mortar stores can target people searching for products or services they provide near to their shop or in their city to drive in-store traffic.
Hotels can target a certain part of the world to bring in people that want to travel to their country and come in particularly often.
Online stores can target locations that have a high demand for their products or services.
Language targeting is used when a specific language is selected. This is based on the user’s settings in Google as well as on the Google domain that they use. This is useful because you can target users searching in English with their browser’s language setting set to another language.
Location and language targeting are good ways to bring in the type of traffic that suits your business best.
3. Device Targeting
Device targeting lets you target people that are using specific devices.
You can target mobile phones, tablets and computers to get your Text Ads seen by specific people based on the type of device that they use most often.
This is useful if you, for example, own a coffee shop and would like to target someone searching on their smartphone for a coffee shop nearby to them, to encourage them to come into your store to buy coffee.
4. Demographic Targeting
Demographic targeting in search lets you choose to target:
age
gender
household income
Demographics, like keyword targeting, can also be used to exclude certain demographics so that a certain category of people don’t see your Text Ad.
Source: Targeting your ads