The people most likely to become your customers are often the ones who already know you. They visited your website, added something to their cart, watched your video, requested a demo, or bought from you before. In Google Ads, these audiences are called your data segments. Google used to call this "remarketing," and many people still do.
This guide explains what your data segments are, the rules that control them, and how to use them to win more customers from people already familiar with your business.
What Are Your Data Segments?
Your data segments are audiences built from people who have interacted with your business. They come from a few sources:
- Website visitors: people who visited your site or specific pages on it, recorded by the Google tag.
- App users: people who used your mobile app, if you have one.
- YouTube users: people who watched your videos or engaged with your linked YouTube channel.
- Customer lists (Customer Match): contact information you upload, like emails and phone numbers from your CRM or store.
- Lead form submitters: people who filled out a lead form in one of your Google ads.
Because this audience already knows who you are, it usually converts at a higher rate and a lower cost than people seeing your ads for the first time.
Website Visitor Segments
Once the Google tag is installed, you can build segments based on what people did on your site. A few examples:
- All visitors: everyone who came to your site.
- Product or service page visitors: people who looked at a specific product, category, or service.
- High-intent visitors: people who reached your cart, checkout, pricing, demo, or booking page but didn't finish.
- Converters: people who purchased, signed up, or submitted a form. You'll usually exclude these from new-customer campaigns so you don't pay to reach people who already converted.
New segments can take 48 to 72 hours to start filling up.
Membership Duration: How Long People Stay in a Segment
Every segment has a membership duration, which is how long someone stays in it after their last visit. The default is 30 days, and the maximum is 540 days for Display and Search. When membership expires, the person drops out unless they come back.
Match the duration to how long your customers take to decide:
- Short buying cycles (low-cost or impulse purchases, flash sales, urgent services): 7 to 30 days.
- Medium cycles (most ecommerce products, local services, subscriptions): 30 to 90 days.
- Long cycles (B2B software, high-ticket items, cars, furniture, renovations): 90 to 180 days or more.
Minimum Size Requirements
Google won't show ads to a segment until it's big enough. For Display, Search, and YouTube, a website or app segment needs at least 100 active users in the last 30 days. Customer lists follow the same 100-user rule for Search and YouTube, as long as they were uploaded or refreshed after February 1, 2024. Older lists had a higher minimum, so refreshing an old list is worth doing.
If your site gets modest traffic, start with broad segments like "all visitors" and longer durations. Very narrow segments may never get large enough to serve.
Customer Match: Using Your Own Customer List
Customer Match lets you upload contact information from your own records, like email addresses and phone numbers, and reach those people across Google Search, the Shopping tab, YouTube, Gmail, and Display. Google matches the information to Google accounts. Data is hashed before matching, and Google's Customer Match policies and account eligibility requirements apply.
A few rules to know:
- Customer Match memberships expire after 540 days.
- To keep a list eligible, at least 100 members need to be added or updated within that 540-day window. Refresh your lists regularly, either by uploading manually or by syncing your CRM or ecommerce platform.
- Only upload data you collected with the proper consent, and follow Google's policies. If you advertise to people in Europe or the UK, consent requirements are stricter.
Great ways to use Customer Match:
- Win back lapsed customers: reach people who haven't purchased or renewed in a while.
- Cross-sell and upsell: show recent buyers complementary products, add-ons, or upgraded plans.
- Exclude current customers: keep new-customer offers in front of new customers only.
- Guide automation: add your best-customer list as a Performance Max audience signal so Google knows what a great customer looks like.
Targeting vs. Observation
When you add a segment to a campaign, you choose how Google uses it:
- Targeting narrows your campaign so ads only show to people in the segment.
- Observation keeps your reach the same but lets you see how the segment performs, and adjust bids or ads for it.
On Search campaigns, Observation is usually the right starting point. Add your website visitors and customer lists in Observation, then watch how they perform. Past visitors often convert better, which can justify bidding more aggressively for them or showing them a different message.
Your Data in Performance Max and Demand Gen
In Performance Max, your data segments act as audience signals. They're suggestions, not limits. Google uses them as a starting point and may show ads to other people likely to convert. Your converter lists and best-customer lists make some of the strongest signals you can give.
In Demand Gen campaigns, you can also use your data to build lookalike segments, which find new people who resemble your existing customers.
Segments Every Business Should Build
- All website visitors, 30 days
- All website visitors, 180 days
- Visitors to each core product category or service page
- Cart, checkout, pricing, or booking visitors who didn't convert
- Converters (for exclusions)
- Past customers from your CRM or store (Customer Match)
- YouTube viewers of your top videos
Final Thoughts
Your data segments turn people who already know you into customers at a lower cost. The key is building them early, choosing sensible durations, keeping customer lists fresh, and excluding people who already converted.
At Uppertier Marketing, we set up and maintain these audiences as part of every account we manage, and we use them to show the right message to past visitors, past customers, and new prospects. If you're not sure your remarketing is working, schedule a call and we'll take a look.
