Google Ads audience segments let you show your ads to specific groups of people based on their interests, demographics, and online behavior. Instead of casting a wide net and hoping the right customers see your ads, you target people who are actively shopping for flooring, have visited your website, or match the profile of your best customers. This precision targeting helps you stop wasting money on clicks from people who will never buy and focus your budget on qualified prospects who are more likely to become paying customers.
This guide covers everything you need to know about audience segments in Google Ads. You’ll learn why they matter for flooring retailers, how to set them up step by step, and the different types available (including Google’s predefined segments, your remarketing data, and custom audiences). We’ll also share best practices and specific audience segment ideas tailored for flooring stores. By the end, you’ll know exactly how to use audience segments to reach more qualified buyers and reduce wasted ad spend.
Why Google Ads audience segments matter
Most flooring retailers waste 30-50% of their ad budget on clicks from people who will never buy flooring. Without audience targeting, your ads show up for everyone who searches your keywords, including renters, people just browsing, and homeowners who won’t make a purchase for years. Google Ads audience segments let you focus your budget on people who match your ideal customer profile and are actively ready to buy.
The cost of untargeted advertising
You pay for every click whether the person is qualified or not. When you run Search campaigns without audience layers, you reach bargain hunters looking for the lowest price, DIYers who want installation tips but will never hire you, and window shoppers who are years away from a purchase. Each wasted click costs you $5-15 in the flooring industry, and these costs add up fast when you’re paying for unqualified traffic all month long.
The advantage of precision targeting
Audience segments let you prioritize high-value prospects without excluding others entirely. You can increase bids for people who visited your showroom page, decrease bids for previous customers who aren’t likely to buy again soon, or layer in demographic targeting to reach homeowners in your service area. This precision means your ads work harder and your budget goes further.
When you target the right audience segments, you can reduce your cost per lead by 40-60% while increasing the quality of inquiries that come through your door.
Competitors who don’t use audience targeting pay the same amount for every click regardless of buyer intent. You gain an edge by investing more heavily in qualified prospects and spending less on people unlikely to convert.
How to set up audience segments in Google Ads
Setting up google ads audience segments takes less than five minutes once you know where to look. You access all your audience options through the Audience Manager in Google Ads, which serves as your central hub for creating, managing, and applying segments across all your campaigns. The process involves three main steps: accessing the audience manager, adding segments to your campaigns, and choosing how you want those audiences to affect your bidding.
Access the audience manager
You start by logging into your Google Ads account and clicking the Tools and Settings icon in the top right corner of the screen. From the dropdown menu, select Audience Manager under the Shared Library section. This takes you to a dashboard where you can view all available audience segments, including Google’s predefined options and any custom audiences you’ve created. The Audience Manager shows you the size of each segment, performance data, and which campaigns currently use them.
Add audiences to your campaigns
Click into any active Search, Display, Video, or Shopping campaign and select the Audiences tab from the left navigation menu. You’ll see a blue plus button labeled "Edit audience segments" at the top of the page. Click this button and Google displays all available segment types in a browsable format. Browse through affinity segments, in-market audiences, remarketing lists, and custom segments by clicking each category. Select the checkboxes next to the audiences you want to add, and you’ll see them appear in a summary panel on the right side of your screen. Click Save to apply these segments to your campaign.
You can apply multiple audience segments to the same campaign and adjust bids differently for each one based on their value to your business.
Configure your targeting approach
After adding segments, you must choose between "Targeting" and "Observation" modes. Targeting mode restricts your ads to only show people in your selected segments, which dramatically limits your reach but ensures maximum relevance. Observation mode allows your ads to reach anyone but lets you see performance data and adjust bids separately for people in your audience segments. Most flooring retailers should start with observation mode because it gives you flexibility to increase bids for qualified buyers without completely excluding other potential customers. You can adjust your bid modifier up to +900% for high-value segments or down to -90% for low-value audiences, giving you precise control over who sees your ads and how much you pay for each click.
Types of Google Ads audience segments
Google Ads audience segments fall into three main categories: Google’s predefined segments, your data segments (remarketing), and custom segments you build yourself. Each category serves a different purpose in your targeting strategy, and you can combine multiple types in the same campaign to reach the right buyers at the right time. Understanding how each segment type works helps you choose the best options for your flooring business and maximize the return on every dollar you spend.
Google’s predefined audience segments
Google provides four types of ready-made audience segments based on user behavior, demographics, and life stages. Affinity segments target people based on their long-term interests and habits, like "home improvement enthusiasts" or "luxury shoppers," making them ideal for building brand awareness with people who fit your customer profile. In-market segments focus on people actively researching and comparing products in specific categories right now, such as "flooring & tile" or "home improvement services," which makes them perfect for reaching buyers ready to make a purchase decision.
Detailed demographics let you layer in additional targeting based on homeownership status, household income, parental status, and marital status. You can target homeowners making $75,000+ who are married with children because these factors indicate buying power and the need for durable flooring solutions. Life event segments reach people going through major transitions like moving to a new home, recently married, or recently purchased a home, all situations where flooring replacement or installation becomes a priority.
Google’s predefined segments give you immediate access to millions of qualified prospects without requiring you to build custom audiences or wait for remarketing data to accumulate.
Your data segments (remarketing)
Your data segments let you reconnect with people who already know your business. Website visitors form the foundation of most remarketing strategies because these people have already shown interest by browsing your site, viewing specific product pages, or using your room visualizer tool. You create these segments by adding a Google Ads tag to your website, which tracks visitor behavior and builds audience lists automatically. You can segment visitors by specific pages they viewed, time spent on site, or actions they completed, allowing you to show different ads to people who looked at luxury vinyl versus hardwood flooring.
Customer Match lets you upload email lists from your customer database directly into Google Ads. You provide a list of email addresses, phone numbers, or mailing addresses, and Google matches this data to signed-in users across its network. This approach works well for targeting existing customers with maintenance products, reaching past customers who bought flooring three to five years ago and might need replacement, or excluding recent buyers from acquisition campaigns. You can also use Customer Match to create lookalike audiences that find new prospects with similar characteristics to your best existing customers.
Custom audience segments
Custom segments give you complete control over who sees your ads by letting you define audiences based on search terms, websites, or apps people use. You can create a segment targeting people who searched for terms like "best flooring for dogs," "waterproof flooring options," or "hardwood vs luxury vinyl" in the past week, which captures buyers actively comparing products. Website-based custom segments target people who visit competitor websites, home improvement blogs, or interior design sites, putting your ads in front of prospects researching flooring solutions across the web.
App-based custom segments reach people based on the mobile applications they use regularly. You can target users of home design apps like Houzz, home improvement project management tools, or real estate apps, all of which indicate someone planning renovation work or moving into a new property. Custom segments require more setup time than predefined options, but they let you build highly specific audiences that match your exact ideal customer profile based on actual online behavior rather than broad interest categories.
Best practices for using audience segments
Most flooring retailers make three common mistakes when implementing google ads audience segments: they use targeting mode too aggressively, they apply only one segment per campaign, and they set up audiences once and never review performance. Following proven best practices helps you avoid these pitfalls and get better results from day one. You need a systematic approach that starts conservative, tests multiple combinations, and refines your strategy based on actual performance data rather than assumptions about who your ideal customer might be.
Start with observation mode
Observation mode gives you the safest path to testing audience segments without accidentally killing campaign performance. When you add segments in observation mode, your ads continue reaching everyone who searches your keywords, but Google tracks performance separately for people in your audience segments versus those outside them. This approach lets you gather real data about which audiences convert best before you restrict your reach with targeting mode. You can see that homeowners aged 35-54 in your remarketing list convert at twice the rate of other visitors, giving you confidence to increase bids for this segment by 50-100% while keeping your ads visible to everyone else.
Start every new audience segment in observation mode for at least two weeks to collect enough data for informed bidding decisions.
Layer multiple segments together
Combining two or three audience segments in the same campaign creates highly qualified prospect groups that convert at much higher rates than single segments alone. You might target people who are both in-market for flooring and homeowners with household income above $75,000, or people who visited your website and recently moved to a new home. Each additional layer makes your audience smaller but more qualified, so you pay more for these valuable clicks while maintaining broader reach for other prospects. Test different combinations to find which segment pairs produce the best cost per lead for your specific market and service offerings.
Monitor performance weekly
Audience segment performance changes over time as seasons shift, inventory changes, and competitors adjust their strategies. You should review your audience reports every week to identify segments that stopped performing well or new opportunities that emerged from behavioral changes in your market. Check your cost per conversion for each segment compared to your campaign average, and adjust bid modifiers up or down by 10-20% based on these results. Remove segments that consistently underperform after 30 days of testing, and reallocate that budget to your best-performing audiences. Regular optimization ensures your targeting stays sharp and your budget flows to the prospects most likely to schedule showroom appointments or request quotes.
Audience segment ideas for flooring retailers
Flooring retailers often struggle to identify which audience segments deliver the best results because they apply generic targeting strategies instead of combinations specific to the flooring purchase journey. You need segment ideas built around how your actual customers research, compare, and buy flooring products. These proven combinations target buyers at different stages while excluding people who waste your budget on low-intent clicks.
High-intent buyer segments
In-market for flooring combined with homeowners in your service area creates your highest-value audience segment. These people are actively comparing flooring options right now and own the property where installation will happen, which eliminates renters and DIY researchers who rarely convert into paying customers. You should bid 100-200% more aggressively for this segment because these prospects are ready to make a purchase decision within the next 30-60 days.
Website visitors who viewed product pages but didn’t request a quote form your prime remarketing segment. You can create separate lists for people who looked at luxury vinyl versus hardwood versus carpet, then show them specific ads highlighting the benefits of the product category they researched. Layer this segment with people who spent more than two minutes on your site to filter out accidental clicks and focus on serious shoppers who engaged with your content.
Competitor and comparison shoppers
Custom segments based on competitor websites let you intercept shoppers researching your local competition. You build a list of URLs including competitor websites, Home Depot, Lowe’s, and Lumber Liquidators, then target people who visited these sites in the past 14 days. These prospects are actively comparing options, which makes them ideal candidates for ads highlighting your showroom experience, installation guarantees, or exclusive product lines that big box stores don’t carry.
Target people who searched for terms like "flooring near me," "best flooring installer," or "[your city] flooring stores" because these queries indicate strong local purchase intent.
Affinity segments for home improvement enthusiasts combined with household income above $75,000 reaches homeowners who value quality and have the budget for premium flooring options. This combination works particularly well for luxury vinyl plank, engineered hardwood, and natural stone products where higher price points require qualified prospects.
Final thoughts
Google ads audience segments transform wasted ad spend into qualified leads when you apply them strategically across your campaigns. You now understand how to access the Audience Manager, add segments to your campaigns, and choose between targeting and observation modes based on your business goals. The combination of predefined segments, remarketing lists, and custom audiences gives you complete control over who sees your flooring ads and how much you pay for each click.
Start with observation mode on two or three high-intent segments this week, then monitor your performance data to identify which audiences deliver the lowest cost per lead. See how IFDA’s AI-driven targeting technology takes audience segmentation even further by identifying flooring buyers during each phase of their purchase journey from initial planning through final store visits.
