In-Market Audiences are finally here in Google Search! Announced almost exactly a year ago to the day at their Marketing Next event, Thruline partners began seeing the option to add these familiar targeting options in Search for the first time this week.

While these In-Market segments are in open beta, they have been a targeting staple for years in Google Display Network (GDN) and YouTube. Through these channels, In-Market Audiences have allowed advertisers to reach people actively researching and intending to buy among select categories of products and services. Google identifies users with strong intent through their interaction with Google Search, Shopping, YouTube, and other Google products.

Powerful Audiences for Powerful Search
As predicted in our blog post earlier this year, high powered audiences have arrived for Search in the form of In-Market Audiences. With bidding automation top of mind, audiences allow us to further fuel Google’s smart bidding algorithms with more data to find the right prospective students at the right time.

Our team sees significant opportunity from the newly launched In-Market Audiences which has many benefits which other audience types may not. In-Market Audiences combine strong signals for users with high intent to purchase along with massive scale with over 1 billion daily search users across all audiences.

Even better, a number of audiences are perfectly made for the education industry.

Top In-Market Audiences for Education Advertisers
Google has launched over 500 audience segments across 24 categories for advertisers to layer onto their Search campaigns. With so many options, where do we start? Luckily for Thruline and our partners, a number of audiences are especially well-suited for education advertisers.

Education > Post-Secondary Education
Education > Post-Secondary Education > Arts & Design Education
Education > Post-Secondary Education > Business Education
Education > Post-Secondary Education > Cosmetology Education & Training
Education > Post-Secondary Education > Technology Education
Education > Test Preparation & Tutoring
Employment > 14 different job sectors
Financial Services > Credit & Lending > Student Loans

Our digital media team will be testing these audiences along with other creative uses of the many In-Market Audience categories. Keep an eye out for future updates on what performance wins we see for our university partners.

Myron Liu, Digital Media Manager