Set up custom audiences in Google Ads

Business Benefits

Remarket to custom audiences in Google Ads to improve ROI and RoAS.


Log in to your Google Ads account and navigate to Tools > Shared Library > Audience Sources, click Set Up Tag on the Google Ads Tag card, click Collect data on specific actions people performed on your website to show personalized ads in the Remarketing card, and select your Business Type to set up your Google Remarketing Tag.

Select the Business Type that matches your specific line of business. If your business category isn’t listed, select Custom.

Select the tag implementation method based on how tags are set up on your website.

Create a new custom audience master spreadsheet with six columns named Audience Name, Source, Update Method, Update Frequency, Update Responsibility, and Notes.

Name the spreadsheet something memorable, such as Custom Remarketing Audiences.

Add the names of all custom audiences you want to target to your spreadsheet under Audience Name.

Add all custom audiences you want to target with your ads. These audiences could be from your website or other advertising channels.

Some examples include:

  • Facebook Ad Clicks.
  • Email Openers.
  • Website Visitors.
  • Email Subscribers.
  • One-time Customers.
  • Abandoned Carts.
  • Repeat Customers.
  • Active Leads.

Add the data source for each audience, such as Website Visitors, Customer List, Email List, App Activity, or Offline Activity under the Source column.

Define whether each audience is updated automatically or manually under the Update Method column.

If this type of audience can be tracked automatically, such as by using the Facebook Pixel or Google Remarketing Tag, then enter Automatic.

If the information needs to be entered manually, such as from a customer database, then enter Manual.

Add the Update Frequency and Update Responsibility for each manually updated audience in your spreadsheet.

Update Frequency examples include Weekly, every Wednesday, or Monthly - 3rd of every month.

Assign the responsibility for manually updating each audience type to a person on your marketing team to make it easier to track who is responsible for updating the audience and ensure they know when to update the data.

Add any special instructions or notes that you would like to centralize or share with your team under the Notes column.

This information could include things like Google Ad account details or Remarketing Tag URLs/Codes.

Navigate to Tools & Settings > Audience Manager > Remarketing in your Google Ads account and click the + icon to create a custom audience for each audience in your custom audience master sheet.

Select the Source and other information based on your spreadsheet entries.

For example, if your source is Website Visitors, then enter an Audience Name, select the audience criteria in List Members, enter the URL for the page where you will be tracking visitors, select whether you want to Pre-fill list with people from the past 30 days or start with an empty list, and enter the audience duration you consider relevant to your advertising in the Membership duration field.

If your Source is a Customer List or other similar type of list, select the appropriate option and click the Next button to upload a file with your audience information.

Last edited by @hesh_fekry 2023-11-14T11:15:40Z