Can you still use custom segments in Google Ads?

Struggling to understand Google Ads custom segments? Are you not seeing them anymore in your audience targeting settings? You're not alone! In Episode 63 of the Inside Google Ads podcast, host Jyll Saskin Gales breaks down the complexities of custom segments in Google Ads.

Just in time for the launch of her new book, "Inside Google Ads: Everything You Need to Know About Audience Targeting" (available on Amazon April 16th, 2025), Jyll gives listeners an exclusive sneak peek into her chapter about Custom Segments. She clarifies what custom segments are, how they work, and the four key inputs you can use. Then, she shares one of her big "aha!" moments about the relationship between content targeting and audience targeting through custom segments.

Next, Jyll answers one listener's question about custom segments in search campaigns and clarifies their compatibility across different campaign types like Display, Demand Gen, Video, and Performance Max. Finally, she answers an agency owner's question about the best way to leverage website URLs for custom segments.

Key topics discussed in this episode:

• Understanding the definition and usage of custom segments in Google Ads.
• Exploring the four inputs for creating custom segments: interests, searches, websites, and apps.
• The relationship between content targeting (topics, placements, keywords) and audience targeting through custom segments.
• Compatibility of custom segments with different Google Ads campaign types (Display, Demand Gen, Search, Video, PMax).
• Clarification on using website URLs when creating website-based custom segments.

Plus, be sure to stay tuned until the end of the episode for a new Insider Challenge to solve!

You can get episode transcripts delivered to your inbox each week by signing up for free at https://free.jyll.ca/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=episode63 

Buy my book!
Inside Google Ads: Everything you need to know about Audience Targeting hits Amazon on Wednesday, April 16th, 2025. This book is your comprehensive guide to mastering audience targeting and achieving exceptional results. Learn more at https://jyll.ca/book?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=episode63 

Find Jyll on social media
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Transcript

Can you still use Custom segments in Google Ads? 

 Yes, but Google has made them even more complicated than they already were. 

 It's good timing for your question though, because my book, Inside Google Ads: Everything You Need to Know About Audience Targeting, comes out in one week, Wednesday, April 16th, 2025.

As of when I'm recording this, I don't know if the e-book will come out that day, but the paperback is definitely coming out exclusively on Amazon on all international sites. That's US, Canada, UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, South Korea, Japan, Australia, and a dozen more countries. And of course, this discussion of Custom segments is a big part of my book about audience targeting. So we're going to tackle your questions, and I'm going to give you an exclusive sneak peek inside my new book, Inside Google Ads. 

I'm your host, Jyll Saskin Gales. I spent six years working for big brands at Google, and now I work for you. 

 This is Inside Google Ads, Episode 63: Custom Segments.

Now, before I get to the questions you've asked me about Custom segments, I thought it might be helpful here to define Custom segments for us a little bit. But don't worry, I'm not going to bore you with the basics. I have some really interesting kind of “aha” moments for you. 

So if you're watching this on YouTube right now, you will see the actual interior of what this looks like in my book. And if you're listening, consider this my audition for a potential audiobook version. Here is an excerpt from my book exclusively for the Inside Google Ads podcast.

Custom segments let you take additional pieces of information that Google knows about people, and slice and dice it in a way that’s uniquely valuable to your business. With Custom segments, you can show ads to users who have certain online behaviours that you find particularly intent-rich.

More specifically, Custom segments give you four inputs for creating your own unique audience segments. In Google Ads, you can create a Custom segment based on:

• People with certain interests or purchase intentions
• People who searched for certain terms
• People who browse types of websites
• People who use types of apps

For simplicity, we’ll call these four inputs “interests,” “searches,” “websites,” and “apps.”

Custom segments are not only a hybrid of your data and Google’s data, they are also a hybrid of audience targeting and content targeting. With a Custom segment, you are building an audience based on the types of content people have engaged with.

You are turning content targeting into audience targeting.

Did I just blow your mind? Well hold on to your hat, because we’re going to take that a step further. 

The three types of content targeting in Google Ads are Topics, Placements and Keywords.

Topics-based content targeting lets you show ads to people as they are engaging with content about certain topics. Interest-based Custom segments let you show ads to people who have engaged with content about certain topics.

Placements-based content targeting lets you show ads to people as they are using certain websites and apps. Website-based and app-based Custom segments let you show ads to people who have used certain types of websites and apps.

Keyword-based content targeting (in a Search campaign) lets you show ads to people when they are searching for certain terms. Searches-based Custom segments let you show ads to people who have searched for certain terms.

Pretty cool, right?

I'm going to end this excerpt there, but that is the first ever sneak peek of Inside Google Ads: Everything You Need to Know About Audience Targeting by Jyll Saskin Gales. 

If you want me to email you a reminder on launch day, you can sign up at jyll.ca/book. That's
J - Y - L - L dot C-A. I will also be releasing next week's episode on Wednesday, April 16th, instead of the usual Thursday to give you even more of an inside look at my upcoming book. 

Now on to your questions. 

Aristide on TikTok says, can we add these Custom segments audiences in Search campaigns? 

No, Custom segments are not compatible with Search campaigns. Combined Segments are funnily enough, but not Custom segments.

One of the many things I include in my book is a series of cheat sheets to show you which audience segments are compatible with which campaign type because the Google Ads Help Center is not up to date on all this stuff. 

So here's what you need to know about Custom segment compatibility. Custom segments are only compatible with two campaign types: Display and Demand Gen, that's it. You can use them for inclusion only and not exclusion. However, there's a similar audience type called a Custom interest, and that is compatible with Video campaigns and Performance Max audience signals. 

What's a Custom interest? It's nearly identical to a Custom segment, except you can't use searches as an input. You can use interests, websites, and apps. That's a Custom interest rather than a Custom segment.

But fear not, for Video campaigns only, there's this other thing called a Custom search terms. I wish I was making this up. And a Custom search terms is like the search terms part of a Custom segment. 

So where does that leave us? While it may go by different names, you can use the functionality of a Custom segment, turning content targeting into audience targeting, in Display, Video, Demand Gen, and PMax. In Display and Demand Gen, at least for now, it's just a Custom segment. In Video, it's a Custom interest and a Custom search term. And in PMax, remember it's an audience signal, not audience targeting. So you can include a Custom interest in your signal. And if you want to include search terms in your signal, you can do that by adding Search themes. 

See why I wrote a whole book about this? 

Remember, you can sign up now at jyll.ca/book. If you're listening to this before April 16th, 2025, then you'll be signing up to receive a reminder email when my book comes out. And if you're listening to this after April 16th, 2025, then you'll find links on that page to purchase my book in paperback, in ebook, maybe one day an audio book, in dozens of different countries.

Our final question today comes from Frank Seidel, an agency owner in France. And he asks, if I want to create a Custom segment based on people who browse websites similar to, what exactly does Google expect is useful when they say, “enter website addresses / URLs that your ideal customer might visit?”

Is it just the domain like example.com? Is it the entire URL like https://www.example.com? Will Google take into account if I enter a subdomain or subdirectory or even a specific page? I haven't found anything coming directly from Google on this topic. 

Well, Frank, Google does not answer this question directly. So I am making assumptions about the answer based on my pretty deep knowledge of how Google works. And my answer is that all that matters here is the top level domain like jyll.ca.

Why do I believe that to be true? The main reason is because the way a Custom segment or Custom interest works is that it's websites similar to, not the exact website. So it's just looking for a triangulation here. 

The second reason I think that's the way it works is because most of the websites you're going to want to target are probably not part of the Display network. Google doesn't know who visits the shoe page versus the dresses page. If the website uses Google Analytics, then sure, a different part of Google knows, but that information stays with that advertiser. Google does not have the data for advertising purposes of who visits specific subdomains or specific pages of a website.

This is why I recommend when you're using a Custom segment or Custom interest that you include 5 to 10 different websites, not just one, or 5 to 10 different apps, not just one. 

Think of it like that scene in a cop show where the bad guy's cell phone pings off a tower. There's a radius around the tower and they say, “He's somewhere in this radius!” But they need to wait for that cell phone to ping off the second tower and then the third tower to be able to figure out where the bad guy is. 

So I think of this the same way: with just one website, Google's not going to have a good understanding of what kind of user you're looking for. But if you give Google the New York Times, the Globe and Mail, the Wall Street Journal, the Economist, then Google goes, “this is the kind of person who's interested in news and current events.”

Give the system what it needs so it can give you what you need.

All right, today's Insider Challenge is this. Let's say your target audience is people who own sports cars. This is a near-real example from a coaching client I met this week. Their target audience is slightly different so as to protect their identity, but let's go with this, sports cars. How might you leverage Custom segments or interests or search terms to reach people who aren't just interested in sports cars, but who own a sports car? 

The beauty of the Insider Challenge is there's no right or wrong answer, just an opportunity to stretch your brain on real-life Google Ads problem solving. 

Last Episode's Challenge was this. Let's say you've picked about 8 Exact Match keywords that perfectly align with the kinds of searches you want to advertise on. You are a local service provider, so you're advertising in a small service area where you do business. You run your Google Ads for a few weeks, and you don't get that much traffic, about 50 or so impressions, just a handful of clicks, but you have 67% Impression Share. No conversions and at this rate you're just not going to get enough clicks in a month to potentially get any conversions. What do you do?

I probably wouldn't expand the location targeting since that's the only area where we want to do business. I also probably wouldn't go to Broad Match right away since we have no conversion data to guide it and probably will get very little conversion data even when we expand our targeting. So I would do the exact thing I said last episode that I don't like doing. I would likely recommend switching from Exact Match keywords to Phrase Match keywords. 

Why? 

Well, what I actually want to do is add more keywords here, but I have the perfect keyword set right now, and I don't know what those most closely related keywords might be. 

I could use Keyword Planner again to try to figure it out, but since I'm in such a small area, that might not actually reflect search demand where my client operates. 

By leveraging Phrase Match, perhaps temporarily, I'm giving Google permission to expand outwards a bit so I can see what those close variant searches might be and whether they're related to my business. If they are, add them as new Exact Match keywords to expand my reach. 

It just goes to show that there is no right or wrong way to do Google Ads. As someone who's worked with more than 10,000 Google Ads accounts, I have my best practices, my frameworks, my general rules of thumb. But on every coaching call, I need to find out the specific needs of that client, that business, that account, that campaign, and tailor my advice accordingly.  

So for this challenge, my advice? Let's switch from Exact Match to Phrase Match to see what we learn, even though I normally don't like using Phrase Match keywords.  

What about you? Would you do the same thing or something different? 

I'm Jyll Saskin Gales and I'll see you next time Inside Google Ads.