Ohio State Google Audiences

Manage Google Audiences for paid campaigns and marketing.

The Office of Marketing and Communications manages the enterprise opportunities for Google Audiences. Audiences are limited by Google and  therefore subject to usage and prioritization. To create an Ohio State Google Audience, you must:

  1. Review the criteria (Google dimensions) allowed for creating an audience.
  2. Consider your goals and objectives for the audience. What do you want this audience to do (click, read, apply, register, subscribe, share, watch, listen)
  3. Share your audience criteria with Marketing Analytics. Include:
  • Your name
  • Your unit
  • Your audience name: (see Google audiences name conventions below)
  • Audience description: (see audience description conventions below)
  • Audience criteria: List the combination of criteria you will use to match a person to an audience. For instance, visitors to a webpage, email campaign ID, or geographic location of IP address. 
  • Audience objective: Review audience objectives. https://omc.osu.edu/tools/analytics/audience-experience-analytics 
  • Describe campaign:  In 50 words or less, describe how you'll use the Google audience.
  • Campaign-end date: What date is this campaign no longer used? Consider how long will the campaign be in effect. Audiences may be deleted after the campaign expires.

 

Naming Conventions for Google Audiences

Shared audiences

Google Audiences that are shared for larger audience engagement are labeled with a “Shared-” prefix. Example: “Shared-Current Students”
 

Non-shared, or restricted audiences

If an audience is not labeled as shared, the audience is not intended for others to use for marketing and reach. These are considered restricted for use.

 

Office or unit label

Add the Unit or College name to identify audience. Example: DEN Prospective Patients. This enables us to identify that the College of Dentistry is using this audience.

Give your Google Audience a meaningful description.

It’s helpful to add context to the description of the Google Audience. This allows us to see who can be contacted for changes and how old an audience is.

  • Description: Describe the audience in fewer than 20 words.
  • (Name.number) suffix is used to indicate the person creating the audience. 
  • (mm-dd-yyyy) Add a date suffix when the audience is created so we can track age. Periodically, we will contact the admins of audiences to audit activity and see if the audience is actively used.

Examples:

  1. University faculty, (FT, PT or emeritus) based on webpage visits and email campaigns (meves.2 / 2025-04-01)
  2. Athletics ticket-interested based on Ticketmaster visit data (foley.151 / 2024-12-20)

 

Shared Ohio State Marketing Audiences in Google

There are several shared Google Audiences for use in campaigns and marketing. Some examples are listed below. Join the Ohio State Marketing Analytics Community of Practice to learn more about Google Audiences.  Join the Teams Channel. 

All Users All users recorded by Google
mobile-iPhones  and mobile-other Audiences with views on mobile phones
Ohio residents  Demographics suggest the user lives in Ohio
International Students  Current or prospective international students
Ticket-interested  Users with an Athletic ticket interest
Staff or Faculty  Page visits and session campaigns indicate faculty or staff member
Under age 24  Demographics suggest young people
Prospective students  Students who have visited popular pages for prospective students
Prospective graduate students  People visiting popular graduate school admissions pages