In Market Audience VS Affinity Audience

To run a successful ad campaign in Google Ads, you need the right audiences. Today’s article, In Market Audience VS Affinity Audience, we will tackle the two most discussed types of audiences in Google Ads.

We will be discussing what an in market audience and an affinity audience is, the difference between the two, their importance, and how you can utilize them to generate leads.

Watch the video version of this article below:

In Market vs Affinity Audience

What is the difference between market audience and affinity audience?

The difference between these two types of audiences in Google Ads is the way people do their activities online.

For in market audiences, this is categorized as people who have a higher chance of buying a specific item based on their online searches and online activities gathered from Google search and other Google-owned properties like YouTube and Google Maps.

On the other hand, the affinity audience is categorized for lifestyle people. These are people who show lifestyle activities online, meaning they show their interests, hobbies, or lifestyle on their online activities.

Both types of audiences are helpful to your ad campaign, depending on the type of goal and conversion you are aiming for.

Importance of in market and affinity audiences

In market vs affinity audiences importance

The importance of adding audiences to your ad groups is this allows you to target your audiences based on specified interests and categories.

For in market audiences, this is best used if your goal is conversion or sale since in market audiences reach out to potential customers who are currently looking out to buy.

The in market audiences is also useful in remarketing campaigns, to drive potential buyers to make a final purchase.

Let me cite an example of an in marketing person. Let us say, a person is searching for a personal injury attorney. He typed on Google search ‘personal injury attorney near me’. By searching this term, it signals a strong chance this person will be hiring an attorney soon.

To target this person, make sure your ads are very strong in line with the person’s search term. A few things you can do:

Your page should also contain the target keywords to be highly relevant to the shopper.
Your remarketing should be done properly. Remember these audiences are the middle of the funnel and are ready to buy. Thus, when setting up the ads for in market audiences, I suggest you use a point system to identify hot leads that do not contact you. You can remarket using display and video.
Retarget your in market audiences with YouTube, Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter so you create a surround sound effect and bring them back to your website and get the sale.

The affinity audience on the other hand is best used for branding. With affinity audience, you are building awareness about your brand. Think of TV ads when running your ads for affinity audiences, but only you are running text ads. You are reaching out to potential customers whose interests are in line with what you offer.

Let’s take a runner as an example of affinity audience. This runner is into marathons and is an active runner. This person is probably into fitness and nutrition, running shoes, sports gear, etc.

For this type of audience, your marketing approach needs to be a long-term approach. This person may buy several pairs of running shoes per year but he may not be in the market right now.

With this audience, it is recommended to do a lot of branding:

Use top of the funnel video. The length of how long the users watched the video tells us how much or how little they are in the market right now.
Run the video for cents per view as this is cheaper
You may also, use display ads

How does Google know who is the market for your product or service?

Google has the technology to gather information from everyone who is using Google’s services. This includes Google search, YouTube, Google listing, and Google maps to name a few.

They own billions of touch points and their algorithm can record the buying behavior of its users. It’s fair to say Google has the data of almost everyone on the planet.

Wrapping up

Both in market and affinity audiences are useful to any Google Ads campaign. However, do not combine your in market audience or affinity audience with a keyword when you’re setting up your campaigns. It’s hard to tell which audiences are your winners and losers.

Instead, use in market audiences and affinity audiences without keywords and test the Google Ads ad groups against each other to find the winner.

If one of your in market or affinity audiences Google Ads campaign is outperforming another, then put more budget in that campaign and reduce the other.

Convert that traffic into sales NOW!!!

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