"Which targeting option is best for achieving brand awareness?" is one of the questions people search while preparing for the Google Ads Display certification, and its sibling is "which targeting option is best for influencing consideration?". Both come down to the same skill: matching an audience segment to what you want the campaign to do. This page answers both from Google's own documentation and then shows what the choice means for a B2B landing page.
Short answer: for brand awareness, use affinity segments. For influencing consideration, use in-market segments, with custom segments as the companion option when the predefined in-market categories do not describe your buyers. Google describes affinity segments as a way to "reach users based on what they're passionate about and their habits and interests", which is a broad, interest-based pool suited to getting your name in front of new people. In-market segments "reach users based on their recent purchase intent", which is the definition of someone already comparing options. Source: Google Ads Help, About audience segments.
The Segment Types Google Offers
Google groups audiences into segments and estimates who belongs to each from activity on Google products and third-party sites. The list in the help article is short, and each segment answers a different question about the person:
- Affinity segments: who they are over the long term, judged by passions, habits and lifestyle.
- In-market segments: what they are actively shopping for right now.
- Custom segments: people you describe yourself by entering keywords, URLs and apps.
- Detailed demographics and life events: long-term facts and milestones such as moving or changing jobs.
- Your data segments: people who already visited your site, used your app or appear in your CRM (Customer Match).
Read against the marketing funnel, the mapping is direct. Affinity is the widest net and the weakest signal of buying intent, so it suits awareness. In-market is narrower and carries recent intent, so it suits consideration. Your data segments sit at the bottom, where people already know you and the job is conversion. Google's display documentation frames campaigns the same way: you can "drive sales, leads, and website traffic or build awareness and consideration for your business" (About Display ads and the Google Display Network). We cover the reach side of that in what is a key benefit of display campaigns.
Why Affinity Fits Awareness
An awareness campaign is judged on reach and recall, not on form fills. Affinity segments are built for that: they describe stable interests, so the pool is large and not limited to people who happen to be shopping this week. You are paying to be seen by the right kind of person before they need you.
The trap for B2B teams is measuring an affinity campaign on demo requests. It will look terrible, because most people in an interest segment are months away from a purchase, if they ever buy. Measure awareness on reach, frequency, and lift in branded search or direct traffic over the following weeks. If you need help choosing those metrics, our list of B2B marketing KPIs separates input metrics from pipeline metrics.
Why In-Market Fits Consideration
Consideration means the person already knows they have a problem and is weighing solutions. In-market segments target exactly that state: Google has seen behavior that suggests a recent intent to buy in a category. That makes the click more valuable and the landing page more important, because the visitor arrives with a comparison in mind.
For B2B software, the predefined in-market categories are often too broad. "Business software" covers everything from payroll to observability. That is where custom segments help: you can build a segment from the keywords your buyers search and the competitor URLs they visit. Google says custom segments let you "reach your ideal audience by entering relevant keywords, URLs and apps". If you already map search terms to buying stages, our post on buyer intent keywords gives you a ready-made list to seed a custom segment with comparison and alternative terms.
What This Means for the Landing Page
Targeting decides who arrives. The landing page decides what happens next, and the two should change together. A common mistake is pointing an awareness campaign and a consideration campaign at the same demo page.
| Objective | Segment | Visitor's state | Landing page that fits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brand awareness | Affinity | Has not heard of you, may not have the problem yet | A short explainer, a benchmark or a tool; soft CTA such as subscribe or read more |
| Consideration | In-market or custom | Comparing options in your category | Comparison page, use-case page by industry, pricing overview; CTA to see it working |
| Conversion | Your data (remarketing, Customer Match) | Knows you, has visited before | Demo or contact page with proof from their segment |
This is the same principle Google applies when it scores landing page experience: the page should deliver what the ad promised to the person who clicked it. An affinity visitor promised "learn how teams handle X" should not land on a ten-field demo form.
Worked B2B Example (Illustrative)
Illustrative scenario: a company selling scheduling software to field-service businesses has a quarterly display budget and two goals, get known in two new verticals and pull more evaluators into the pipeline.
- Awareness line: affinity segments around business and industry interests that overlap with facilities and trades owners, ads promoting a free guide to reducing missed appointments. Landing page: the guide, with a newsletter signup. Success metric: reach and frequency, plus branded search volume trend.
- Consideration line: an in-market segment for business software plus a custom segment built from terms such as "field service scheduling software" and two competitor URLs. Ads promote a comparison page. Success metric: engaged sessions on the comparison page and clicks through to pricing.
- Conversion line: remarketing to visitors of the comparison and pricing pages, with ads offering a walkthrough. Landing page: demo request with field-service case studies.
Each line has its own page and its own metric, so a weak awareness campaign does not get killed for failing at conversion, which it was never meant to do. If you want the consideration page to change by industry without building a page per vertical, that is what audience segmentation on the site itself handles.
How to Check the Choice Worked
- Tag each line with its own UTM campaign value so GA4 can separate the traffic.
- Compare engagement rate by campaign rather than bounce rate alone; our explainer on GA4 engaged sessions and bounce rate covers how those are defined.
- For the consideration line, track the share of sessions that reach pricing or comparison pages, not only form fills.
- Pick the bid strategy that fits each goal; our guide to matching auto-bidding strategies to campaign goals walks through the options.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which targeting option is best for achieving brand awareness?
Affinity segments. Google describes them as reaching people based on their passions, habits and interests, which gives a large audience suited to building recognition before people are actively shopping.
Which targeting option is best for influencing consideration?
In-market segments, because Google defines them by recent purchase intent. When the predefined categories are too broad, add a custom segment built from the keywords and competitor URLs your buyers use.
Can I use affinity segments on Search campaigns?
Yes. Google's availability table lists affinity and in-market segments for Search, Display, Video and Standard Shopping campaigns, while custom segments are not listed for Search.
Should awareness and consideration campaigns share a landing page?
No. Awareness visitors need an explanation or a useful resource, consideration visitors need comparison and proof. Sending both to the same demo page wastes the awareness clicks and under-serves the evaluators.