Google Custom Audiences, the Combo of Custom Affinity and Custom Intent Audiences, Now Live

Last year at Google Marketing Live, Google said it would be unifying custom affinity and custom intent audiences under a custom audience option. Custom audiences are available now in Google Ads for Display, Discovery, Gmail and YouTube campaigns.

You no longer create custom affinity or intent audiences. Now, when you set up a new custom audience from the Custom Audiences tab on the top menu of Audience Manager, you’ll have the option of building it based on either:

1. People with any of these interests or purchase intentions.
2. People who searched for any of these terms on Google properties (such as Google.com and YouTube).

You can then click the links below to expand the targeting with URLs, apps from a list, and/or also types of places they visit such as Video Game Stores or Financial Services, also from a dropdown list. Custom audiences then target for Reach, Consideration or Performance, depending on your campaign goal and bidding strategy.

Any existing custom intent or custom affinity audiences you have will automatically be migrated into custom audiences.