What Is An Audience?
What is an audience you ask? According to Google, audiences are groups of your users who share the same attributes. They are used for advanced analysis of sub-sets of your website visitors and for marketing to this sub-set using Google Ads for example.
Audience Examples
Some website visitors are more valuable than others – e.g. they are more likely to do
business with you. Your customers share certain attributes – whether it is gender,
where they live, or how often they visit your website.
Many of the examples of audiences online relate to ecommerce. Since most of our
clients offer services, here are some high level examples of audiences that would be
applicable to even small businesses that offer services:
- Website visitors from the US
- Website visitors that are in city = Kanata
- Website visitors that did not book an appointment (so that you are marketing only to
new clients, not existing clients) - Are in Canada, added to cart but did not purchase
Audiences vs Segments
While both audiences and segments allow you to group users based on certain criteria,
audiences are permanent and used for advanced analysis and targeting, while segments
are temporary and used for filtering data within reports. Segments are created and
modified on the fly and do not need to be saved.
Audiences are permanent and persistent, meaning they will remain in your account until
you delete them. Segments are temporary and exist only within the report where they
are created.
Audiences are typically used for advanced analysis and targeting in other Google
products, such as Google Ads or Google Marketing Platform. Segments are used for
filtering data within reports and can be used to answer specific questions or analyze
certain subsets of data.
* means that when you create an audience, the data starts collecting from this date on – there is no historical data but you could use a segment to see this audience historically
How To Create An Audience
- Sign in to your Google Analytics 4 account.
- Navigate to the Admin page.
- Select the “Audiences” option from the “Property” column.
- Click the “Create audience” button.
- Choose the type of audience you want to create: “User” “Event”, or “Combined”.
- Define the audience criteria using the available filters and conditions.
- Preview the audience to make sure it matches your intended criteria.
- Name your audience and save it.
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- About the Author
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Darlene is a search marketer, analyst, speaker, trainer, and owner of DriveTraffic Digital Marketing. She has been working in the digital marketing industry since the mid 90s and has narrowed her specialty to SEO, Google Ads and Google Analytics. She is especially interested in Google’s new Search Generative Experience and how businesses will need to adapt to remain visible. Want to see how DriveTraffic can help? Let’s chat!
