Google Ads is shifting out Similar Audiences and so called opting targeting to “Optimised Targeting”… does anyone have much success with “optimised targeting”? It sounds shady to me since I’m not sure what is it optimising????

[jwiegand]

Afaik Similar Audiences will be merged into Optimized Targeting, so it’s gonna relay more in smart bidding/AI.

[FNtaterbot]

Most of the campaigns I’ve tried it on it’s been predictably garbage, and since there is little visibility into it to improve I usually just turn it off. Probably will make that a best practice for new Display campaigns moving forward.

[wormwoodar]

It sucks, I always deactivate it.

[dopeyjj]

Very little information on who you’re actually targeting.

I run the PPC ads for a university that wants to target international students so we’re currently targeting regions in MENA and West Africa, since taking out optimised targeting our conversions (lead gen) have decreased by 40% BUT we’re still generating the same amount of quality leads that lead to paid customers. It obviously varies greatly from industry to industry but in my particular case, saved a big chunk of ad spend without hurting performance by removing optimised targeting.