What Is Ads Personalization in Google and How to Use It?

Table of contents:

• What Is Ad Personalization in Google?
• What Elements of Ads Can Be Personalized?
  • Recipients
  • Location
  • Device
  • Ad Schedule
  • Demographics
• Legal Restrictions for Personalized Ads
• What Is Ad Personalization in Google? The Takeaway

What Is Ad Personalization in Google?

Personalized ads are a tool that makes it possible to meet the needs of users better and thus increase the ROAS, ROI (Return On Investment), and improve sales leads for advertisers. ROAS is an abbreviation for Return on Advertising Spend, which means percentage return on advertising expenditures. It's an important indicator in e-commerce. For B2B companies it's crucial to generate leads such as filled contact forms. By tailoring your ads, you can avoid situations when people visit the site but don't convert in the end. But how does Google know what ads are suitable for specific users? Determining the gender, age, location, device, and text of the ads helps to better select the content so that the ads become more appealing to customers. The data is collected on the basis of websites visited by the users, and the applications they use. For example, if someone goes to Zalando's website and searches for elegant handbags, they'll later see ads for handbags or related accessories in the search results. Users' searches are processed and remembered by Google algorithms.

What Elements of Ads Can Be Personalized?

Wondering what segments you can personalize when creating a campaign? Google Ads allows you to personalize text, location, device, time, and demographics such as gender, age, parental status, and household income. When users see personalized ads, they're more likely to interact with a brand or business. In this article, we will discuss what this strategy is all about.

Recipients

Google Ads allows you to obtain your users' data by editing your audience segment. This way you can determine demographics - who your recipients are, what their interests are, what they are looking for or planning to do, and explore individual audience segments. You can also create remarketing lists. Segments can be set both at the entire campaign level and at the ad group level. It's possible to customize rates for a particular segment of recipients. Similarly, you can also exclude recipients who shouldn't see your ads. The list of excluded recipients in graphic (banner) ads must contain at least 100 active members, and in text ads at least 1000 recipients when talking about Google services.

Location

Setting a location in Google Ads allows you to display ads in selected locations: countries, provinces, cities, or in specific places of residence of the users. But how can you know where your users are? This information can be found in Google Analytics, which allows you to analyze data and estimate the location of potential customers. Setting the location for a small area means that the advertisement will be displayed rarely. It's worth choosing the right language. Each user may have a different browser language set, so it's a good idea to take it into account. Placing the name of a city, country, or region in the heading and setting the location is an example of a personalized text ad. It's worth using this technique if you want to display your advertisement only in specific locations. To strengthen your message, you should use location extensions.

Device

Each Google Ads campaign allows you to target devices such as TV, tablet, phone, and computer. You can also use the option to target specific operating systems, device types, or models. When creating a campaign, you can also select the rates for individual devices. If you reduce the rate by 100%, the ad won't be displayed on a specific device. An example of a device-targeted personalized ad: When ordering via smartphone, you get a 10% discount on delicious dinners. Don't wait, order today!

Ad Schedule

Google Ads allows you to set a schedule for displaying your ads. Ads can be displayed at specific times, on specific days, or when a customer searches for information on Google. It's also possible to modify the rates, which means you can decrease or increase rates on the days and times you choose. Let's use the example of an ad schedule for company X, which sells swimwear. Based on the schedule analysis, it can be seen that the ads generate the most traffic on Mondays and Tuesdays from 7 p.m. Consequently, we can set the schedule to ensure that the ads are displayed on those days and at these times. With intelligent and automatic strategies such as max conversion value, max conversion, CPA, and ROAS, we don't need to decrease or increase the rates, because the strategies are automatically optimized to improve the conversion. When creating personalized ad text, focus on the appropriate form of communication. In the text or heading of the ad, you can include information about the goods you're advertising, or USP (Unique Selling Products) and a call to action. Below you can see an example of an advertisement whose assortment is dedicated to a specific season - summer.

Demographics

Google Ads allows you to edit demographics. You can add or exclude age, gender, parental status, and household income at both campaign and ad group levels. Some companies offer an assortment that targets only a particular age group, gender, or parental status. In such a situation, you can separate the individual texts of ads for a particular group. For example, banks have special credit offers for young people, pensioners, etc., or companies that offer holidays for parents.

Legal Restrictions for Personalized Ads

Personalized ads also have legal restrictions. Google doesn't allow controversial or inappropriate ads. Let’s outline some Google Ads restrictions: prescription drugs, targeting ads to people under 13, alcohol, gambling, financial problems, bullying, crime, sexual orientation, religion, discrimination, contraception, and others.

What Is Ad Personalization in Google? The Takeaway

Google ads personalization is an important part of marketing activities. Ads collect users' data in order to better tailor advertising content to the queries. Each of us likes to be treated individually, so by introducing these elements when creating a campaign or group of ads, you increase your chances of improving conversions, and thus increasing revenue. Now that you know what personalized ads are, it's time for you to start using them in your campaigns! Need help with setting and managing your ads? Contact us, we can do it for you!