How to Target Users by App in Google Ads Campaigns

Did you know you can target people in Google Ads based on some of the apps they might use?

Setting up a custom segment based on apps for Google ads targeting is relatively simple. In this Marketing O’Torial, we’re going to walk you through the steps.

App Targeting Using Custom Segments

According to Google, you can target your ads toward people who use apps similar to the ones you think your ideal customer might use. 

This will help reach people who download and use apps similar to the ones that you enter. However, it’s important to note this doesn't mean that your ads will show on these apps.

What Google Ads app campaign targeting does do is tell Google Ads: If people use these apps, I want to target them with my ads on Google-owned and operated properties.

Building a Custom Mobile App Targeting Segment

To show you the step-by-step process of building a custom segment to target apps, we’re going to use the Cypress North Marketing O’Clock podcast. The podcast is our weekly roundup of digital marketing news, so we want to find people who may be interested in those kinds of updates.

Step 1

Go into your audience manager under tools and settings in the Google Ads platform and click the plus button to start building an audience.

Step 2

After you name your audience, click into the custom segment section and create a new segment.

Step 3

Bypass the first few options available and click on “People who use these types of apps.” You can then name your segment. For our example, we’re naming it “Digital Marketing Apps Segment (PPC).”

Step 4

Think of what kinds of apps you want to target for your audience. For Marketing O’Clock, we cover a lot of Google Ads news, so that’s an easy app for us to add. Another app we may want to target is Microsoft Advertising.

PRO TIP:
Try not to mix too many things together in your custom segment. That’s why we added the (PPC) to the end of our segment name. If you have too many different apps in one custom segment, it gets really confusing when you try to figure out what’s working and what isn’t. For our example, we can set up our PPC segment and then make another one targeting people who may use SEO apps or something like Google Analytics. Breaking out your segments by different ad groups will make your life a lot easier.

Step 5

After you’ve added the apps you want to target, you can view some of the insights for your segment. You’ll be able to see by country, gender, age, and more.

Step 6

Click save and now you have your audience!

Adding Your New Audience to a Google Ads Campaign

Once you’ve built and saved your audience, you can add it to one of your Google Ads campaigns. Sticking with our Marketing O’Clock example, we’ll walk you through the steps of implementing the audience you created.

Step 1

Go back to your campaign and click on whichever ad group you want to add your new audience to. Ours is called “Custom Segment Build.”

Step 2

Go to the audience section of your ad and click edit audience segments.

PRO TIP:
Make sure you always have targeting turned on. That means you’ll target only those people, not observe them.

Step 3

Click browse and go down to “custom audience segments.” In that section, you’ll be able to look for and find your new audience.

Step 4

Check the box next to your new audience segment so it’s selected, then hit save. Once you do, the audience you’re only targeting is people who have apps similar to the ones you selected.

Finding the Right Apps to Target

A big thing to keep in mind when you’re building Google Ads custom segments for app category targeting is this is just Google - not the Apple App Store. The good thing about that is there are some links you can use to find Android apps.

AppBrain is one of our favorites because it has a good listing of apps and you can see their ranking.

Apptopia is another tool you can use to sort Google Play by category. You’ll be able to explore free apps vs. paid apps and get more information on them. Another cool feature is you can see other apps from a company and target more than one of their apps if you want. For example, if you’re targeting the Google Ads app, you could also go through and check other apps from Google.

So building custom segments in Google Ads to target app users is that easy. The biggest thing is just being creative with it and thinking about what kind of apps your customers would be using on their phones so you can give it a shot.

Have questions or need help with your campaigns? Get in touch with our digital marketers!