In Google Ads you have many criteria to define who we should show your ad to. Understanding how these different criteria behave in combination can help you refine the reach of your campaign.
This article explains how criteria are ANDed and ORed when you choose them in Google Ads. For more freedom in explicitly defining AND/OR relationships between your audience criteria, see Combined Segments.
With AND, you can reach an audience that fulfills each of the multiple criteria at the same time.
With OR, you can reach an audience that fulfills any of a set of criteria.
Example for OR
Let’s say you’re selling makeup and want to reach audiences with specific related interests. The audience segments “Beauty Mavens” and “Fashionistas” who are interested in beauty and fashion could be interested in your products. You don’t have a preference for either one.
ORing will show you an audience that matches at least one of the interests.
If you want to reach any of those two audiences, you should add both to your adgroup. Without any further action, these audiences will automatically be treated as an OR. As a result, you may reach “Beauty Mavens” who are not into fashion and “Fashionistas” who are not into beauty and also people who are interested in both.
Examples for AND
Let’s say you’re a car retailer who wants to reach car enthusiasts by gender and age.
If you want to reach women in ages 18-24 who are interested in cars, you can just add “women,” and “18-24,” in demographics, and “Car Enthusiasts” in audiences. We will AND these demographic and audience criteria by default and will only show your ad to people who fulfill all of these criteria.
ANDing will show your ad to the audience that matches both criteria: demographic and interest.
If you now want to reach people who are “in-market for an SUV” and are also “outdoor lovers” you would need to AND those audience criteria. By default we OR audience criteria, but you can use Combined Segments to achieve ANDing.
Behavior when combining multiple targeting criteria |
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YOU CAN APPLY THE ABOVE EXAMPLES WITH MORE CATEGORIES |
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ANDing audience segments finds people who match each of the segments you are AND’ing together. For example, if you choose an audience by a specific demographic like women in the age group of 18-24 AND add the interest criteria “Beauty Mavens” you will find only those segments of women in 18-24 ages who are also interested in “Beauty Mavens.” |
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YOU CAN APPLY THE ABOVE EXAMPLES WITH MORE CATEGORIES |
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Audiences |
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Detailed demographics |
OR |
Affinities, Consumer Patterns, Life Events |
OR |
In-markets |
OR |
Remarketing |
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Taxonomic |
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Shutter bugs |
Cameras |
All visitors, all converters |
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Marital Status |
Movie lovers |
Digital SLRs |
Customer Match |
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Education |
Running enthusiasts |
Plasma TVs |
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Home ownership Status |
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Custom |
NA |
Custom segments, for example: |
Custom segments, for example: |
Rule based lists |
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Swiss winter sport fans (outdoor, winter, Switzerland) |
About to buy a camera (camera, slr, purchase) |
Web, App, YouTube, Custom combination |
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AND |
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Contextual |
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| Keywords | OR | Topics (category subjects of the pages where the ads show) | OR | Placements (specific websites where to show the ads) | ||||
| Search | ||||||||
| Content (display keywords about where the ads show) | ||||||||
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AND |
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Demographics |
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| Gender |
AND |
Age |
AND |
Parental status |
AND |
Household Income | ||
| Female OR Male OR Unknown | 18–24 OR 25–34 OR 35–44 OR 45–54 OR 55–64 OR 65+ OR Unknown | Parent OR Not parent OR Unknown | Top 10% OR 11–20% OR 21–30% OR 31–40% OR 41–50% OR Lower 50% OR Unknown | |||||
