15 Google Ads Targeting Strategies For You To Steal

Are you feeling the squeeze of rising CPCs and increasingly automated Google Ads campaigns? In this special episode 92, Google Ads coach Jyll Saskin Gales shares advanced, cutting-edge targeting strategies designed to help you get your ideal customers from Google Ads. Specifically, she'll walk through 15 specific Google Ads targeting tactics you can try right now in your Search, Shopping, Video and Demand Gen campaigns.

This episode is edited from a webinar that was originally livestreamed with Dana DiTomaso of Analytics Playbook, so if you're listening rather than watching, you might like to watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/nCiTWqAVua8

Topics covered in this episode:

• Strategies for competitor conquesting, including Jyll's very own "non-brand conquesting"
• How to effectively use audience layering in Search and Shopping campaigns, moving from observation to targeting to exclusion
• Three ways to handle expensive keywords and industries using custom segments and adjacent audiences
• Non-linear targeting tactics for operating successfully in sensitive interest or restricted categories
• The importance of creative-led targeting and turning content targeting into powerful audience targeting

Do you have a question for Jyll? Drop a comment on Spotify, YouTube, or any of her social media posts, and she'll answer it for you in an upcoming episode.

You can get Inside Google Ads 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=episode92
 
Google Ads Coaching
Need some expert help with your Google Ads campaigns? Book a call with Jyll! Learn more at https://jyll.ca/pages/google-ads-coach?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=episode92

Inside Google Ads course
Join more than 400+ Google Ads practitioners in Jyll's Inside Google Ads membership course. You'll find up-to-date Google Ads tutorials, and you can ask Jyll your questions at an exclusive live video call every single month. Learn more at https://learn.jyll.ca/iga?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=episode92

Resources mentioned in this episode

• Book: Inside Google Ads: Everything you need to know about Audience Targeting https://jyll.ca/book?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=episode92
• Full webinar including Q&A: Google Ads Targeting - What you need to know in 2025 https://youtube.com/live/hgBJAXtGVq8
  
  

Read more about this topic on Jyll's Google Ads Blog

• How to Spy on Competitors' Google Ads (and Why You Should!) https://learn.jyll.ca/blog/how-to-spy-on-competitors-google-ads-and-why-you-should?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=episode92
•  Google Ads Audience Targeting: A Comprehensive Guide to Reaching Your Ideal Customer https://learn.jyll.ca/blog/google-ads-audience-targeting-a-comprehensive-guide-to-reaching-your-ideal-customer?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=episode92
• What is Non-Linear Targeting in Google Ads? https://learn.jyll.ca/blog/what-is-non-linear-targeting-in-google-ads?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=episode92

Follow Jyll on social media
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jyllsaskingales
https://www.youtube.com/@the_google_pro
https://www.instagram.com/the_google_pro
https://www.threads.net/@the_google_pro

Transcript

Disclaimer: This transcript is machine generated and may contain errors. Due to the length of this episode, we have done a “quick clean up” rather than the usual in-depth clean up.

One of the most common challenges you're facing in Google Ads is that costs are rising, campaigns are becoming more automated, you no longer have the control you're used to. So how are you supposed to get great results from Google Ads now, next year, and in the future?

In this episode, I'm going to share 15 specific Google Ads targeting tactics you can use right now to get better results for your ad investment.

This is taken from a recent webinar I did with Dana DiTomaso of Analytics Playbook.

This episode is about 40-minutes long and will include tactics for Competitor conquesting, sensitive interest categories, low volume niches, and more.

I'll also put a link in the episode description to the full one hour webinar in case you want to hear the in-depth Q&A we went into afterwards.

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 92, Google Ads Targeting Masterclass.

This is Google Ads targeting what you need to know in 2025. I've designed this so that if you are someone who, like Dana, maybe is sort of familiar with Google Ads, but doesn't really use it every day, you are going to learn a ton. And also, if you're someone like me who is inside Google Ads every single day, it's your career, you're still going to pick up some new tips and tricks today. 

I'm Jyll Saskin Gales. I use the pronouns she and her, and I'm a Google Ads coach.

So first things first, before we can talk about Google Ads targeting, How do you target your ads today? Do you use keywords? Do you use AI powered campaigns like PMax? Do you use audiences? Are you using features like DSA? There are tons of different ways to target ads in Google Ads. So many more today than we had even five years ago, definitely more than we had 10 years ago.

Regardless of what type of strategy you're using, ad targeting really comes down to this. 

Out there, there is some universe of people who are looking for what you offer. And keywords are typically how we find them. People are searching for something, we have that thing, we show them an ad. But there's this whole other world out there of people who are in your target audience and may just not be actively searching right now. So for example, let's say that you sell strollers. On the left-hand side, people looking for your offer, what's the best stroller, strollers, et cetera.

But on the right hand side, who are the people who are looking for strollers? Are they soon to be parents? Are they parents who have one baby and they're about to have another and they need to upgrade their stroller? Is it a grandparent who wants to have maybe a smaller stroller around from the grandkids come to visit? There's a whole universe of people, parents, grandparents, new parents, existing parents who are in your target audience, even if they're not specifically looking for your target offer right now.

Now, when we can target that intersection of people who are both looking for your offer and meet your target audience, that's where the magic happens. But it's harder and harder and harder to get to that perfect middle ground today, especially with so many more AI and automated solutions. So today we're going to focus a lot on the blue circle here, including the magic part, how to find those people in your target audience.

What we are definitely going to cover is first, I want to share four new targeting strategies that you can use today. I'm actually going to be sharing 15 with you. So if you're newer to Google Ads, you're going to get 15 new strategies. If you're a more advanced user, four that I can close to guarantee are new to you. And then after we've shared the strategies, we know that strategy is one part, but the tactics and the execution can be even more important to making it work. So I'm then going to share four specific tips that I found really helpful to make sure that these strategies actually work for you.

Let's dive in. 

First things first, everyone's favorite place, Competitor conquesting. And conquesting is just the term we use to mean how do you steal your competitors' right? Our competitors must know something we don't. How do we reach people who are looking for them? 

So while there are probably infinite ways to do this, I find that it really comes down to three main strategies to reach your competitors. So we're going to start with kind of level one, what everyone can do, what you're probably already doing. Then we'll share level two, what I'll call what the intermediate practitioners are doing. And then I'll share level three, the advanced strategy that I recommend that perhaps will be new to you today. 

So first things first, how do we get started with Competitor conquesting? Search conquesting. You are Nike, your competitor is Adidas. You want to show Nike ads when people search for Adidas. So you put “Adidas” as a keyword in your Search campaign. And that way, when people search for Adidas, you're eligible to show your Nike ad.

It's simple to do. Anyone can do it. Contrary to popular belief, it's not illegal. You can't use a competitor's name in your ad text if it's a trademarked name. So Nike couldn't run an ad that says, we are Adidas, come buy Adidas shoes. That would be misleading. But they can show a Nike ad when people search for Adidas. The challenge, of course, is because people aren't actually searching for you, you're likely going to have a pretty low click-through rate if you do this.

And when you have a low click-through rate that tells Google, this isn't such a relevant ad, we're going to ding you. You're going to have to pay more for the privilege of showing your less relevant ad. So you can get caught in a loop there. 

To help solve that problem, level two is to use something called a custom segment. We're going to get into these in more detail, but a custom segment in Google ads lets you build an audience of people who have searched for a thing.

So rather than trying to show an ad at the moment that someone searches for Adidas, which is not you, instead you can create a custom segment and include searches like “Adidas,” “Adidas running,” “Adidas running shoes,” “Adidas shoes,” “Adidas yoga,” et cetera. And then you can show ads to people who have searched for those things as they're doing other things online. So maybe this morning they were searching for Adidas and now they're watching a YouTube video. Now you can show them an ad knowing that it is the same person who was searching for your competitor. So that's our intermediate level, conquesting, building a custom segment of your competitors brand names. 

Level three is a strategy I came up with called non-brand conquesting. Non-brand conquesting lets you advertise when someone searches for Adidas or lets advertise when someone has searched for Adidas.But what if you could advertise the exact moment that people are either seeing ads or organic results for your competitors? 

The way non-brand conquesting works is this. This is a screenshot of Keyword Planner in Google Ads. Even if you're not spending any money on ads at all, you too can use Keyword Planner. And what you do is instead of typing in the keywords you're interested in or instead of typing in your own website, you type in your competitor's website. And then what Google does is it looks at your competitor's website and finds the searches that it thinks are relevant to that site. 

So in this example for Miffy Shop, I got a little Miffy back there, it's a little character I like. You can see the branded searches that Google knows are related to that. Miffy Keychain, Miffy UK, Miffy Rabbit. But we can also see the non-brand searches that Google associates with that site, like “plush toys,” “soft toys,” “stuffed animals.” You can use those as keywords. And what's great about that is you now know that your ad will be showing at the top of a page where at a bare minimum, your competitors organic results are there. And more likely than not, if they're running ads, these would be their non-brand keywords. So nothing against Search conquesting. It's a great starting point. If you've never tried non-brand-conquesting before, I highly recommend you give it a try. 

Of course, the other benefit to this as well as potentially sealing your competitors' customers is that you probably offer plush toys and soft toys and stuffed animals so you can have a great click-through rate and awesome quality score and draw great results for your business this way. 

So strategy number one I challenge you to try if you haven't before is non-brand conquesting using Keyword Planner, a free tool.

Next, we're going to move on to audience layering in Search and Shopping. So when we want to show a Search ad or a Shopping ad, something has to happen in order for you to show an ad. A user has to actually search for something, right? There has to be a search before your ads can show. And then you have the option to layer audiences on top. And there are lots of different ways to do that. 

So once again, we're going to start with level one for our beginners, move to level two for intermediate, and then I'll share level three for advanced. 

So how do we get started with audience layering in Search and Shopping? 

First things first is to just observe. When you add audiences to a Search campaign or a Shopping campaign in Google ads, you have the option to add it on targeting or on observation. So I recommend that when you start, you start with observation. And this means your ads are still going to show the same way they always do, but if the person searching matches one of your audiences, Google is going to make a note of that. And after some time, some weeks or maybe some months, depending on your budget, you'll be able to see data about how people who match your audiences, how their performance differs from people who don't match your audiences. So that's a great starting point to just gather data about the people who are interacting with your Search or Shopping ads. 

Three tips I have for you for getting started with observing audiences. 

First, don't observe too many. Sometimes I'll audit an account and they're observing 100 audiences. I guarantee you're not going to get any usable insight from trying to analyze 100 different audiences in a single campaign. So I recommend between five to 10 audiences. 

Second, don't just observe the audiences that you think will work well. Also observe the audiences that you don't think will work well. 

So for example, let's say you are a home services business. You know that your target customers are going to be homeowners. Don't just observe homeowners, also observe renters. We're going to come back to why a little bit later. Observe what you may think won't work well, as well as the ones you think will work well. 

And then third, there's a new capability in Google Ads. There was no announcement about this, but I started noticing it in accounts about a month ago. Even if you don't add audiences on observation, Google is still going to surface audience insights to you via the Insights tab. So when you're in any campaign type, this used to be only in PMax and now it's all campaign types, on the left-hand side in Google Ads, go to Campaigns, Insights and Reports, and then Insights. Scroll down, and Google will tell you which audience segments are overperforming in your campaign, even if you're not observing any audiences.

So great place to glean insight. If you don't want to observe and wait for data to come in, you can see what your Smart bidding is already using to optimize. 

All right, that is our step one. 

Step two is to move from observation over to targeting. And the place most people start is RLSA. That's our lovely acronym, which stands for remarketing lists for Search ads. And what that means is that you only want to show an ad if someone is searching for something that matches your keywords or your shopping feed, and they're also on your remarketing list. So if someone is searching for your keywords, but they have never been to your website before, then we don't want to show them an ad. 

Why would we do that? Well, there's a lot of searches that may be relevant to your business, but are just not profitable for you to advertise on. Maybe they're too expensive. 

For example, in my business, if I want to advertise to people in the United States searching for Google Ads courses, I can expect to pay about $20 per click. And that's just not viable for my business model. I don't charge thousands of dollars for my course. I'm not going to have an ROI on that. But maybe if someone has been to my website before, or they viewed my YouTube videos before, and then they're searching for “Google Ads course,” then that $20 CPC may be worth it to me. 

And so this is the rationale behind remarketing lists for search ads, RLSA that you can take the kinds of keywords that you want to advertise on, but just generally are not profitable enough for you and target them only if those people are already familiar with your business, because then they're much more likely to convert and therefore it's much more likely to become profitable for you. So that is RLSA. 

And then the third level is Search and shopping exclusions. Remember I said earlier to not just observe the audiences you think will work well, but observe the ones that won't work well? What people always forget about is sometimes it's both easier and more effective to exclude the people you don't want rather than trying to figure out the perfect people you do want. And this is also brand new. Again, there was no announcement on this. I think I broke the news on this about a month ago that you used to only be able to exclude audiences in Search campaigns. But now you can also exclude audiences in Shopping campaigns. 

So in my example before, let's say you are a plumber and you have emergency plumbing services, but you know that someone who's renting doesn't pay for the plumber. It's the homeowner who pays for the plumber. You could exclude renters. And so if someone is searching for a plumber, but Google knows they're a renter, then you just don't show an ad. But if someone is searching for a plumber and Google either knows they're a homeowner or just isn't sure, then you do show them an ad. So you can exclude audiences from Search and Shopping campaigns as one more tool in your arsenal.

All right, we're going to move on to strategy number three, what to do with expensive keywords. Because CPCs are only rising, right? Groceries are getting more expensive, rent is getting more expensive, and keywords are getting more expensive. And that's just going to keep on happening. So what do we do about that? Of course, you can try to improve your conversion rate to help. We talked a little about how RLSA can help. I have some other strategies for you to try today if you're in a very expensive niche.

First things first, Exact Match keywords. Exact Match keywords means you want the user search to match as close as possible to your keyword. If Dana, you haven't used Google Ads in some time, then you may think if you have the Exact Match keyword “mattresses,” that the user search must exactly match your keyword. I'm so sorry to say that since 2022, that has not been the case. So the user search must match the same intent or meaning as your keyword. And Google's definition of intent or meaning is going to be different from your definition of intent or meaning. 

For example, Google considers competitor names to be Exact Matches. So if you have Adidas and someone searches in Exact Match and someone searches Nike, that'll be a close variant of Exact Match.

Dana: That feels very weird. It also feels like Google's trying to like, what do they call that? Shake the couch cushions?

Shake the cushions. I know whenever I hear stuff like this I'm always like, you know, I don't believe Google is evil. Google wants to make money, of course, but I also like there's a reason for this and so if I take my most charitable interpretation which I like to do with people and with Google my most charitable interpretation for this change is it you know what? Someone searching for a Nike or for Adidas. They probably do have similar intent in that exact moment. They're looking for one or they're looking for the other. But if you're looking for Adidas and literally all you typed is Adidas, you would probably also be satisfied by a lot of what Nike offers. 

So it's not what Exact Match means. I think the match type should have been renamed when they made this change in my opinion. But I sort of get where Google's coming from as frustrating as it is.

Dana: It is like vibes searches.

Vibe searches, right? It's the similar intent, meaning or vibes. That's the help center update we need. There you go. So level one is, okay, you know that Search is really expensive. So you want to go to Exact Match to have as much control as possible to make sure you're not wasting spend, on looser matches or on those hidden search terms, which when you're on Exact Match, you tend to not have as many. If you're on broad match, you're going to have all hidden search terms.

Step two for what we can do if we are in a competitive space with expensive CPCs? Our good friend custom segments come back. So maybe it's just too expensive for you to advertise if someone is searching for “mattresses,” but you can build a custom segment of people who have recently searched for “mattresses,” “best mattress,” “mattress reviews,” et cetera, and then show ads to those exact same people as they're minding their business, doing other things online, checking their email, watching YouTube videos, et cetera. 

Note that this custom segment capability I keep talking about can be used in a Video campaign. You can use this in a Demand Gen campaign. You can also add custom segments to a Display campaign. But the special feature I keep mentioning where you're showing ads to people who've searched for specific keywords, that only works if your ad is serving on a Google-owned property.

So if you are serving an ad on YouTube, on Gmail, on Discover, then Google knows who that person is and Google knows what they search for and Google can do that. But if you are serving an ad on the Google Display Network, which is three million websites and apps across the internet, this functionality won't work the same way because you're serving ads on a whole bunch of websites that Google doesn't own. And so Google doesn't have as robust data about those users.

So a little watch out if you are building a custom segment based on things people have searched for. You only want to do that in a Demand Gen or Video campaign. And you want to make sure you are not opted into Video Partners and not opted into the Display network.

And how do we take this to the next level in an expensive industry? Well, level three, what I would challenge you to try is what I call adjacent audiences. 

So coming back to our mattress example, there is an in-market audience for mattresses. If you're in the market for mattresses, if you are selling mattresses, you can tick a box, boom, reach people in the market for mattresses. But you know who else has ticked that box? Every single mattress competitor. So what I like to do is think about, what is something else my target customer, that blue circle from the Venn diagram, what is something else about my audience that they may be in the market for right now? Or even better, what were they in the market for a week ago, right before they were in the market for mattresses? Maybe I want to target in-market for beds and bed frames. Maybe I want to target in-market for bedding. Maybe I want to target in-market for moving services.

Of course, targeting each of these categories will then be up against those competitors who sell bed frames or who sell moving services, but you're going to be pretty unique among mattress advertisers there and perhaps be able to get into that consideration set for someone before they're seeing ads for mattresses literally everywhere they look online.

So while there are thousands of different audiences to target, there may be one that perfectly fits your industry. There may not be one that perfectly fits your industry. I encourage you to think about those adjacent audiences for alternative ideas for reaching your target customer. 

And I know I've been using a lot of B2C examples. I want to show my B2B advertisers some love as well. Maybe you sell accounting software, for example. So there is an in-market audience for accounting software, but your target audience maybe is also in-market for CRM software or in-market for business financial services or in-market for commercial properties for rent.

Those are all real audiences you can target by taking a box on Google. So try to think of what else they may be into, or even better, what they're into a week before they're in-market in your category.

All right, the fourth strategy for you today is what to do if you operate in a sensitive interest category. And this is very specific Google lingo. That means you're in a category with restrictions on your targeting because maybe there's regulation like in financial services or housing or employment, or maybe you're trying to reach people based on religion, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, which newsflash you cannot do. Or can you?

Let's come back to our Venn diagram here. Okay. There's a universe of people looking for your offer and there's a universe of people who are in your target audience X and Y. And so whenever I'm just starting to put a targeting strategy together with one of my Google Ads coaching clients, I always get us to try to do this one simple sentence. I want to sell X to Y. So I want to sell Google ads courses to small business owners. Maybe I also want to sell Google Ads courses to aspiring and experienced Google Ads freelancers. You may have multiple offers. You may have multiple target audiences. For each XY pair, you can put together this sentence. 

So I'm going to give you a real example from a previous coaching client I had of what their sentence was. I want to sell Indian food delivery to Indian immigrants in Toronto. Now Indian food delivery is the offer. How do we do that? Easy keywords, “people looking for Indian food delivery.” Okay. But what was really different about this company was the kinds of restaurants they had were more targeted to people in Toronto who were either from India or from Indian families, like truly authentic Indian food, not the kind of Indian food that I order. And so they wanted to increase awareness among that demographic of people looking for Indian food, not someone like me who may be like, I like Chana masala. No, Jyll does not like real Indian food that I could not handle the spiciness of. OK. And there is not just a box to tick for Indian. I mean, you can target people in India, but no, no, no, we're in Toronto. I mean, we want to reach people in the Indian diaspora. How do we do that? There's no box to tick. 

Well, first things first, level one. Keywords, that's what they were doing. “Indian food delivery,” “Indian takeout,” “authentic Indian food,” but their conversion rate was so-so, maybe partly because they were a startup, but also partly because they were reaching a lot of people who were not in their target audience. How do we fix that? 

So level two is I introduced them to custom segments. Now, if you're a more experienced practitioner, I know you're saying, but Jyll, we can't use custom segments in sensitive interest categories. Stick with me. If you're trying to do what this business is trying to do, where the business itself is not restricted, food delivery, no restrictions there, it's just the audience you're trying to reach isn't one you can tick a box on, custom segments are your best friend. And so what I suggested here is we want to find the keywords, fine, we've talked about that enough, but you can also build a custom segment based on the kinds of websites people visit or based on the kinds of apps they use. 

So I thought, what are the kinds of websites that an Indian person in Toronto would use that a non-Indian person in Toronto wouldn't use? And same with apps. What are the kinds of apps that someone of Indian descent in Toronto would use that someone not of Indian descent in Toronto wouldn't use? And so I turned to my good friend Google and I just started by looking up like, “what are the top news sources and websites in India?” “What are the top Hindi language?”

So for example, the top Hindi language apps in India, as of a few months ago, were ones I had never heard of before. Meesho, Phone Pe, Ludo King, Flipkart. Let's add those all to a custom segment. And we know that a large portion of who we're going to reach are people of Indian descent in Toronto. 

Now, might we also reach people of non-Indian descent in Toronto? Absolutely. But we already have that problem with our keywords, okay? So which is getting at people in a different way, not focusing on the delivery, but focusing on reaching the right target customer. 

And then how do we take that to the next level? My favorite tactic, I coined the name for it. I call this Non-linear targeting. And this works even if you're in a restricted industry where you can't use custom segments. But same principle, how do we reach people from India who are in Toronto?

Well, what sets them apart from other Torontonians? And even if you are in a sensitive interest category, you can still use Google's audiences. So that means you can still use detailed demographics, affinity segments, in-market segments, and life events. There are no restrictions on those for any industry at all. So I have a chart next to me. You can also find some in my book.

But I went through what are those segments that would likely over index for people from India. So first I found there is an affinity audience for fans of South Asian film. Fans of South Asian film. I love my Hrithik Roshan as much as the next person, but I highly doubt that my Google profile has categorized me as a fan of South Asian films. That could be a great audience to target. 

What's another one? An affinity segment for cricket enthusiasts. Nothing against the sport of cricket, but in Canada hockey is very popular. Basketball is very popular. Cricket, not so popular, but you know where cricket is really, really, really popular? India. That could be a great audience to target in Toronto. And another one I looked at was in-market for trips to India, because within Google under in-market for trips to India, there are in-market audiences for 11 different cities within India.

So someone is in-market for a trip to Mumbai or a trip to Delhi. I don't know, maybe, but if they're in-market for a trip to Ahmedabad, that's a city I had never heard of before until I saw it on in-market audiences. That is somewhere that if someone is traveling from Toronto to Ahmedabad, India, I'm going to bet they are more than likely of Indian descent. So Non-linear targeting encourages you to think instead of I want to target people from India. I can't do it. Instead, we go the long way around. There's a lot more to a person than just the fact that they're from India or they're of a certain religion or certain nationality, you know what I mean? Or have a certain interest that there just isn't a box for. This isn't just by the way, for sensitive interest categories. 

Maybe you're trying to reach HR professionals. There's no box for HR professionals but you know what, people who work in HR, there's probably a lot more to them. Do a little bit of research to find out what conferences might they attend. What are the websites they might visit? What's their equivalent of Search Engine Land and Search Engine Journal? Add those to your custom segments. Take a 360-degree view to understand your target audience as people, and then you'll be able to find so many different ways that you can reach them, even if you can't reach them.

So to sum up, know, perfect is not the goal. That perfect magic middle, it doesn't exist. We often focus so much in SEO as well, I would argue on who's looking for your offer. Let's find the people looking for our offer and show them our offer.  And I hope I've given you, well, I know I've given you 15 strategies today. I hope a couple of them were new to you and thought-provoking enough that you can start to think about that why side and focusing on the people who are in your target audience.

So I shared four, well actually 15, new audience targeting strategies for you to try. And now I'm gonna share just four tips to help make them as effective as possible in your Google Ads account. 

1. First things first is to know your audiences.

If this is the first you have ever heard about Google Ads audience targeting, you might like to change that. It's really hard to use something when you don't even know what your options are. So I mentioned earlier how to go to audience manager and browse. This slide is sort of like one stop, just reminder of what are all the different audiences available in Google Ads. So know your audiences so that you can use your audiences.

And of course, if you want to go into greater detail about any of them, my book Inside Google Ads would be a great resource. 

2. Tip number two is to turn content targeting into audience targeting. 

What do I mean by that? Well, content targeting is showing ads in a certain place. And there are three places in Google Ads that we can show ads. You can show ads on certain keywords, on websites or apps or YouTube channels that have to do with certain topics or on specific website placements, specific app placements or specific YouTube placements. So you're choosing to show your ad alongside a piece of content. 

Audience targeting is showing ads to a certain kind of person where you don't actually care what it is they're doing right now. You care more about who they are. 

And custom segments, which I've talked about so much today, are the way that you turn content targeting into audience targeting. 

I had this epiphany about a year ago and I was working on my book. I think it's so brilliant, which is why I had to share this with you today. Custom segments are built to turn content targeting into audience targeting. Why? Well, you have a list of keywords that's content targeting. You can then use those as search terms to build a custom segment of people who have searched for those keywords, but it doesn't stop there. 

There are certain topics where you want to place your ads. Well, you can put those in a custom segment as interests and show ads to people who are interested in certain topics. And then placements, what do we do with that? Well, you can build a custom segment of people who visit certain websites or apps. And instead of showing ads on that website or in that app, you show ads to people who visit websites like that or apps like that as they're doing other things online. 

So wherever you have content targeting, which by the way is like dying in Google Ads, you can't really do content targeting many places anymore. You can turn content targeting into audience targeting using custom segments and use it across Demand Gen display, video, Performance Max, audience signals. If you show, so choose. A really powerful way to get started with audiences is to turn your content targeting that's working for you into audience targeting with a custom segment.

3. My third tip for you to get more comfortable with this stuff is just to spy on targeting 24/7. 

And my favorite place to do that is the YouTube homepage. It's the perfect place to go ad hunting. Why is that? Cause you'll see all the ads there on the YouTube homepage. You'll see image ads and video ads.

I also like this because ads can be placed on the YouTube homepage via a Demand Gen campaign, a Video campaign, a Display campaign, or a Performance Max campaign. Ads can be placed on the YouTube homepage via content targeting or via audience targeting. So just a great place to get a real survey of ads in Google ads and a great place for you to test your skills. 

So whenever you see an ad anywhere on Google, you click those little three dots and then a screen like this comes up and it'll tell you why you're seeing this ad. You can see the kinds of audience targeting they're using. And so a really great exercise that I like to do because I'm a totally normal person is I always click the three dots and I play a little game first. I try to guess why I got targeted with this ad and then I see if I'm right or not. 

So in this example here, we can see in the top left, the ad for think it's from Rogers, but like Crave and the Sports Network, they're using demographics and custom segments and lookalikes, the most specific targeting, which is funny because the ad is a hockey player and I have zero demonstrated interest ever towards anything to do with sports, but fun.

And then in the bottom right here, I'm like, whoever placed that ad for motion is a Meta ads practitioner because they included no targeting and only Meta ads practitioners do that. So that’s really funny. And then I looked at which of these is actually most relevant to me. And then, you know, even targeting aside, these images all suck, in my opinion. None of these entices me to click, even if the targeting were perfect. So this is just a really great way that in your day to day life, you can test out your skills and see the kinds of targeting real advertisers are using and improve your own skills and get ideas.

4. And then last but not least, something I call creative led targeting, which I totally did steal from Meta ads practitioners.

Because what they do is they say broad targeting, your creative is your targeting. And while you don't need to take it to that extreme on Google, especially with automated campaign types like Performance Max, or if you're using optimized targeting, your creative is your targeting. Now, what do we mean when we say that? Not literally your creative is your targeting. What we mean is that what the end user sees is just the ad and they either engage with it or don't.

And when you're using automated targeting, which you have to do in PMax or what lookalikes might be or what optimized targeting would have you do is it'll just look for people who engage with this ad, let's find more people like them. And people who didn't engage with this ad, let's find less people like them. So it's really, your creative itself can be more influential than the targeting you choose. Great targeting with crappy creative will not work. It's a stronger signal than any audience signal.

And I just want to show you an example of real ads I saw in the wild from a brand called Reformation. OK, so first I'm going to show you a search ad like no Search ad you have ever seen before. Are you ready? OK.

They have some sexy things in the headline to grab attention. I'm sure not going to say out loud. And then in the description, it says “We're Reformation and we make killer tops that don't kill the environment.” That was a human copywriter, like AI could never.

So they're able to get this ad copy there that grabs attention. Killer tops that don't kill the environment. You're learning more about the brand already. You bet. I want to shop now. 

This was not a one-off. I'm going to show you more examples. This next one, this is actually the first ad I ever saw from this brand, which I thought was so brilliant. I went to the Google Ads transparency center to look at all their ads. And it says “Reformation being naked is the number one most sustainable option. We're number two.”

Think about that, we're number two. What do you mean? Oh, and so again, they've told me it's sexy, they've told me it's sustainable, and they've told me it's irreverent. All through one description line in one ad. Really brilliant work. 

Here's another piece, “Cute, sustainable shoes, 100% recyclable, not that you'll want to get rid of these anytime soon.”

And again, you've never been to this website or maybe you have, but me at this point, never been to their website, don't know what the clothes look like already. I know exactly what this brand is about. 

I'm gonna show you more. 

“Sale, Sale, Sale. Compliments, a common side effect of wearing Reformation, right? “Instead of just 50 % off, get 50 % off now, shop or sale now. Compliments, a common side effect. 

Here are a bunch of shirts. This would be feed-based. Instead of just saying shop shirts, “If you're into cute tops…Reformation, sustainably made dresses for parties, brunch, meeting the parents or whatever.” “Reformation skirts, all your other skirts will be jealous.”

So I already love a brand that I've never even shopped before based on their ads. Okay, so this is the standard you should all be setting for yourself. Even you B2B SaaS folks, okay? Your creative is a stronger signal than any audience signal could ever be. 

So to succeed with Google Ads targeting in 2025 and beyond, the four overarching strategies we discussed were non-brand conquesting to go after your competitors, search exclusions rather than just search targeting, adjacent audiences when you're in an expensive niche, and non-linear targeting when you're in a sensitive interest category. 

And then I left with four tips to help those work better. 

1. First, know your audiences before you can use your audiences. 
2. Turn content targeting into audience targeting with custom segments. 
3. Spy on targeting to sharpen your skills using the YouTube homepage or wherever you prefer.
4. And then let your creative lead your targeting. Don't outsource your thinking to AI. We can all tell.

So which strategy are you going to try first?

To dive even deeper on ad targeting strategies and tactics, you can check out my book, Inside Google Ads, Everything You Need to Know About Audience Targeting, available on Amazon, Kobo, and Google Play. 

And of course, join my course, Inside Google Ads, at learn.jyll.ca.

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