Google added a new promotion targeting option to Google Merchant Center for audience targeting. The option is labeled "preferred audience" and is available when setting up a promotion.
This promotion can be seen by customers who are new to your store or who are based in a certain location. There are two options, new customer and location.
- New Customers: These are customers that haven't interacted with your brand before. Note: The new customer audience type is exclusively for Shopping Ads. If you select both Shopping Ads and Organic options, it will only apply to Shopping Ads.
- Location: These are customers that you can target based on their location. They can be located in, are regularly in, or have shown interest in a specific region. Note: The location audience type is exclusively for Organic. If you select both Shopping Ads and Organic options, it will only apply to Organic.
This change was spotted by Emmanuel Flossie who wrote on LinkedIn and on his blog, "Is Google blessing us with another feature for promotions just in time for Black Friday? Yes they did!" He added:
It’s great to see Google continuing to expand the promotional flexibility of Merchant Center. The ability to target specific customer groups opens up more strategic possibilities, especially when combining promotions with product-level performance data.That said, it’s somewhat puzzling why new customer targeting is only available for Shopping ads, while location targeting is limited to organic searches. Both options should be available across all listing types, especially when running region-specific campaigns or in-store promotions.
Still, these updates are a step in the right direction, giving advertisers more tools to personalize offers and reach customers in more innovative ways.
Here is a screenshot of this setting:
Here is a short video he made on it:
Forum discussion at LinkedIn.
