Audiences in Ads Manager

The Ads Manager audience taxonomy allows you to easily discover and select audiences for your campaigns. It simplifies the process by providing a structured hierarchy and detailed descriptions, ensuring you find the most relevant audience segments for optimal campaign performance. The taxonomy comprises only well-defined real-world behavior audience segments with significant scale. This ensures that the audiences available to you are robust and effective for achieving your campaign objectives.

In Ads Manager

On the targeting parameters page of ad groups or campaigns that use the 'Target by Audience' tactic, you'll encounter two methods to add your audiences. One option is to click on the search bar and manually search for your desired audience. The alternative method is to explore our audiences by browsing our audience library.

Upon clicking 'browse audience library', you'll encounter the initial view of our audience hierarchy.

The initial tier of our audience hierarchy comprises audience types, which serve as overarching descriptors aimed at illustrating the diverse range of audience segments we provide. They're designed to help you navigate toward a subset that aligns closely with your requirements. However, audience types cannot be directly selected for campaign delivery due to their broad nature, which might not provide precise targeting. Within each audience type, you'll encounter one or more sub-categories, each containing further refined audience segments.

Within the platform's user interface, you'll notice the size of each audience and category displayed. Upon hovering over a category or audience, a brief description of that segment and how it is built will be visible. The size and comprehensive description for each category and audience aim to help you identify the most appropriate audience for your campaign.

To add an audience to your targeting parameters, simply click on the checkbox next to it. If you wish to select all audiences within a category, just click on the checkbox next to the category name.

Other Audiences

If you're interested in incorporating other audience types like location group audiences, custom audiences, and third-party audience segments, you'll find them located at the bottom of the menu under 'Other Types of Audiences'.

What's included:

• Custom Audiences: All the custom audiences created via Audience Manager and assigned to the tenant and account will appear here.
• Location Groups: All the Location Group audiences created via Location Manager and assigned to the tenant and account will appear here.
• Segments: All the 3rd or 1st party segments assigned to the tenant and account will appear here. (e.g. LiveRamp 3rd party segment, an audience created via our site retargeting pixel)

Full List of Audiences

To browse the full list of audiences, please visit the following Google sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Jb5w6tJcCqR7X0V4BH8h8SmTqsoVJ5NCBjjX-_4A2z0/edit?usp=sharing

Limitations

While our new taxonomy offers significant benefits, it's important to be aware of its limitations:

• National-Level Audience Size: Audience sizes are calculated at the national level and are not updated based on location filters. Please use Ads Manager forecasting tool to see how your campaign's targeting parameters and budget impact your daily available impressions, daily budgeted impressions, and audience daily reach.

Impact to Existing Campaigns 

Our new audience taxonomy comprises only well-defined real-world behavior audience segments with significant scale. This ensures that the audiences available to you are robust and effective for achieving your campaign objectives.

What this means?

Some previously supported audiences will no longer be available in our new taxonomy. This means that moving forward, you will not be able to choose these audiences for your audience-targeting campaigns.

Impact to current campaigns

If your campaign is currently targeting an audience that isn't supported by our updated audience taxonomy, rest assured that your campaign won't suffer any adverse effects. We'll maintain serving and providing reports on those audiences as usual.

For existing campaigns (pre 3/21/24), the implementation of the new taxonomy may result in the following changes:

• Supported Audiences: For old audiences that are supported under the new taxonomy, the new names will appear in the Ads Manager UI. It will also now show the audience size.
  • e.g. 'Sports Enthusiasts' under our old taxonomy will now appear as 'Frequent Sports & Recreation Visitors', 'KFC' under our old taxonomy will now appear as 'KFC Visitors'.
• Unsupported Audiences: Old audiences not supported in the new taxonomy will continue to display their old names in the UI and in reporting dashboards/exports. This ensures continuity and transparency in campaign management and analysis. Moving forward those audiences will not be selectable within the UI of Ads Manager. Please note that unsupported audiences will not show an audience size. This is a good indicator that you will not be able to choose that specific audience for future campaigns.

Above is an example of what a campaign, running before the rollout of the updated audience taxonomy, might see within the framework of the new audience taxonomy. Audiences accompanied by a size represent those supported within the updated system and will be available for selection in upcoming campaigns. Conversely, audiences lacking a size signify that they are not supported within the new taxonomy and will not be available for selection in future campaigns.

Audience Mapping and Deprecated Audiences

Please use the following sheet to see audiences that are no longer supported, as well as the new name of audiences we continue to support: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cCBLkd1pFFmuZNhqrUTcTa0KQfgPVML0Y7ExT4LyBOQ/edit?usp=sharing 

How to use this google sheet:

• Audiences in Red: These audiences are no longer directly supported in the new system. However, a replacement category/audience might exist. Columns C ("Type") and D ("Category") show where these audiences might fit within the new structure.
• Audiences in Black: These audiences are still supported under the new taxonomy. Columns A ("Old Taxonomy Name") and B ("New Taxonomy Name") highlight any potential name changes for these audiences.
• No Suitable Replacement Found? If an audience you previously used doesn't have a direct equivalent in the new taxonomy, you can still reach a similar group using our location manager platform. This platform allows you to create custom audiences based on various criteria.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Will existing campaigns be affected by the transition to the new taxonomy? A: Existing campaigns may see changes in audience names based on compatibility with the new taxonomy. However, campaign settings and targeting parameters will remain intact.

Q: I can't find a previously supported audience under the new audience taxonomy. A. We have retained exclusively the most clearly defined real-world behavior audience segments, ensuring they offer significant scale for achieving the best campaign results. For any custom audience creation needs, you can still use Location Manager as appropriate. Should you require assistance or have any inquiries, please reach out to your GroundTruth representative or email us at selfservehelp@groundtruth.com.

Q: Could you share the corresponding audience name under the new taxonomy for audiences in the old taxonomy?  Please refer to the section 'Audience Mapping and Deprecated Audiences' section above. 

Q: Is there a list of all audiences no longer supported under the new audience taxonomy? Please refer to the section 'Audience Mapping and Deprecated Audiences' section above.