Google will be rolling out a new feature custom affinity audiences to give advertisers more flexibility in their targeting users based on their interests across the Google Display Network.
The search engine giant had launched affinity audiences segments last year to help advertisers in reaching people across the Google Display Network. The segments reflect TV audience targeting.
If advertisers wanted to create a custom segment, they had to work directly work with a Google rep. In the next few weeks, they themselves will be able to build custom affinity audiences in AdWords.
For example, Electronic Arts used custom affinity audiences for engaging fans of NFL teams in their Madden GIFERATOR campaign. EA created separate custom affinity audiences to target fans of each of the 32 NFL teams instead of relying on Google’s football fan affinity segment.
Alexis Cox, Senior Project Manager at EA told Google that custom affinity audiences has allowed us to broaden the reach of Madden with tailored real-time content while maintaining strong engagement.
Advertisers have the option to mix interest segments with sites related to those interests when they are setting up custom affinity audiences in AdWords. The search engine giant provides reach estimates broken down by top interests and demographics.
Google also said that according to the August 2014 figures of comScore, the Google Display Network reached 94% of the web and 89% global internet users on a monthly basis.
