About Audience Builder
Our marketer-centric Audience Builder tool allows you to create seed audiences from your first-party referral data, synchronise them with Google to use as a signal for Performance Max campaigns in Google Ads.
Before you begin
Audience Builder is available for clients as an add-on. Reach out to your Mention Me Account Manager to learn more and upgrade if needed.
Prerequisites
- You would need to have at least Admin permission for your Google Ads account
- You will need access to the Mention Me platform (If you do not have access, reach out to your Mention Me CSM who can sort it out for you).
How to get started
Once your account has been activated for Audience Builder, you can build and synchronise your audience immediately.
Step 1 - Connect your Google Ads Account
On the Mention Me platform, Select Google and Click Connect to begin the connection process
- Agree to the Terms and Conditions to allow Mention Me to transfer data to Google on your behalf
- Create a new authentication
- Name your authentication and select Create
-
Log in with your Google details
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Grant Mention Me permission to access your Google account
- Authorise the Authentication
- Select which Google Ads Account you want to send your Mention Me data to
Step 2 - Build your audience
As you have now connected Mention Me to your Google Ads Account, you can now start building your audience.
- Select the country(s) you want to build the audience from
Top Tip: We recommend you select one country to create a seed audience for targeting on Google. However, if your contact numbers are low you can select multiple countries in similar markets to create a more effective seed audience.
- Select the dataset you want to use to build your audience on and click Next
Top Tip: You will be able to see the estimated number of contacts for each dataset. We recommend using Existing customers who have successfully referred a friend. If you have less than 1,000 contacts available we recommend choosing the next dataset in the list.
Audience data is collected from your best customers over the last 12 months and it includes:
| Audience data set | Description |
|---|---|
| Highest value successful referrers (ECR) |
Advocates with the greatest revenue when accounting for both their spend and their friends' spending. Learn more about ECR |
|
Active referrers (ECR) |
Advocates who have either referred or purchased recently. Learn more about ECR |
|
Existing customers who successfully referred a friend |
Our recommended data set as these are your biggest brand advocates. |
|
Existing customers who have shared |
Your big advocates who are highly engaged with your brand. |
|
Existing customers who have joined the referral programme |
Customers that are on the path to becoming your newest advocates of your brand. |
|
Referred customers who have placed their first orders |
New customers gained from your advocates, becoming advocates in the future. |
Step 3 - Name your Audience
Name your Audience and click Next
- A default name will be created for you. The audience name you define here will show in your Google Ads Manager.
- If you want to change the name, we recommend a naming convention that you will remember and be able to easily identify.
Step 4 - Confirm Consent and Review your Audience
Confirm that you have the relevant consents required either by law or the relevant paid social channel to enable Mention Me to process this data.
- You will be able to edit the name of your audience directly on this page
- The build will commence immediately but could take up to 24-48 hours for Google to process
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Mention Me will hash the email addresses to ensure that no actual email addresses are sent to Google
Once your audience build has commenced, you will be taken to the summary screen where you can:
- View all your built audiences with the number of contacts per audience
- Build a new audience
Your audience will be updated weekly with any new customers that meet the selection criteria
Any created audience will appear as a Customer Match in Google (in Audience Builder)
Top Tips:
- Effective audiences must have a minimum of 1,000 contacts. Still, the match rates of your referral email addresses to Google can vary, so you should be looking at 5,000 contacts as a realistic starting point.
- If you find that your recommended audience is too small, consider creating another Audience based on the next valuable dataset.
- For example, start with “Existing customers who successfully referred a friend” and then create a new audience with “Existing customers who have shared”
Step 5 - Create a Customer Acquisition Goal Campaign in Google Ads
Note: As of August 2023, Google is retiring its tool called Similar Audiences. But they are replacing it with a tool called Performance Max. You can still use Customer Matches as a signal in Performance Max.
The Mention Me created audiences will be created in the Google Audience Builder, can you use them as a signal to start your campaigns with Performance Max
