How do remarketing lists for search ads (RLSA) work in Google Ads?

Your lists are in Audience manager, at Tools › Shared library › Audience manager, which opens on Your data segments. Google’s table of list types marks four as compatible with Search: website visitors, YouTube users, app users and customer lists.

• Website visitors are collected by the Google tag. Google says you must install it “on every page of your website, but you need only one Google tag for each Google Ads account”. A visitor joins a segment within seconds of loading a tagged page. Google Ads makes some segments for you, All visitors and All converters among them, and you make others by rule: a segment for every page whose URL contains a word, say. To make one, select the plus button in Audience manager, then Website visitors.
• An audience built in Google Analytics reaches Google Ads once the property is linked. Analytics Help says you need to “activate Google signals and enable ads personalization” on that link. An audience that uses a demographic dimension such as age, gender or in-market can’t be used on Search.
• Customer lists are uploaded through Customer Match, which Google says is available on Search. An account that doesn’t meet Customer Match’s requirements can use a customer list for Observation and exclusions alone. The Customer Match guide covers the upload and who qualifies.

A tag that fills a list collects data for personalized ads, so consent comes with it. Google’s page on the tag says to get consent where the law requires it, and to switch off the collection of remarketing data for a visitor who hasn’t given it. For people in the European Economic Area, Google enforces its EU user consent policy: to keep using remarketing, “you must collect consent for use of personal data from end users based in the EEA and share consent signals with Google”. Google also doesn’t permit the tag on pages for offers its personalized advertising policy restricts.

Google’s help pages give two figures for the smallest list a Search campaign can use:

• 100 active visitors. Three pages on data segments say a list on the Google Search Network “must have a minimum of 100 active visitors or users within the last 30 days”. For a customer list, the 100 holds if it was uploaded or refreshed after February 1, 2024. An older one still needs 1,000 matched users.
• 1,000 cookies. The page on your data segments for Search ads says a segment “needs to have a minimum number of 1,000 cookies before the segment can be used to tailor your Search ads”. Analytics Help gives the same figure for a list built in Google Analytics.

None of the pages read says which figure is current. What your own list reaches is in Audience manager’s Size columns, one for each network. The Search size counts the people in the segment who searched on Google in the previous 30 days, so it can be smaller than the list. A Search size of 1,000 or more is at or past the larger figure. A new list can take 48 to 72 hours to fill.

A visitor stays on a list for its membership duration: 30 days by default and 540 at most on Google Search. Each new visit to a tagged page starts the count again. Google’s advice is that the duration “should be similar to the length of your sales cycle”. If you change it, on the Search Network the new duration applies to the visitors already on the list as well as to new ones.

Google closes a segment that no campaign or ad group has used for 540 days, and a closed segment stops adding people. Lists nothing uses are the subject of the unused audience segments guide.

A list is added to a campaign or an ad group under one of two settings:

• Observation. Google’s page says it “does not restrict the reach of your campaign or ad group”. The list’s people are reported on their own, and can take a bid adjustment. Google recommends it for all Search campaigns.
• Targeting. “You’ll only show ads to members of your data segments.” The list can still take a bid adjustment. Google recommends it for Video and Display campaigns.

So the setting follows what the list is there for. A list added to a campaign that should go on showing to everyone belongs on Observation. An RLSA campaign belongs on Targeting, and Google’s own instruction for it is to “create a new campaign with these keywords, and use the Targeting setting”. The other way round, the first stops showing to anyone new, and the second buys its keywords from every searcher.

To read the setting, go down your Search campaigns in Edit audience segments, which shows Targeting or Observation for the campaign or ad group you choose. A campaign that shows only to its lists spends all of its cost on their people, so the lists’ share of a campaign’s cost says the same thing:

Two rules hold under either setting. A Search campaign that uses a list still needs keywords, unless it runs Dynamic Search Ads. And a campaign holds its lists at one level: on the campaign or on its ad groups, “but not on both levels at the same time”. To move them up, remove the lists from the ad groups first, then add them to the campaign.

1. 01Go to Campaigns › Audiences, keywords, and content › Audiences.
2. 02Select Edit audience segments, then choose the campaign or ad group.
3. 03Find the segment with Search or Browse, and tick it.
4. 04Choose Observation or Targeting, and save.

To add one list to many campaigns, start in Audience manager. Select the segment, then Add to, then Campaigns or Ad groups. Tick the campaigns, select Next, choose the setting, and select Add audiences. Google Ads skips a campaign or ad group that already has the segment. It also skips one that holds the segment at the other level, since the two would conflict.

You can copy lists from one campaign and paste them into others too. By default the paste keeps each destination’s setting, and where a Search or Shopping ad group has no list yet, it picks Observation.

A bid adjustment on a list raises or lowers your bids for its people by a percentage, from −90% to +900%, on a campaign or an ad group. To set one, open the Audiences page, select the list’s row, then the pencil icon in its Bid adj. column. Choose Increase or Decrease, enter a percentage, and select Save.

Whether it does anything depends on the bid strategy. Manual bidding applies it. Of the automated strategies, Google’s table marks Audiences (incl. RLSA) under Maximize clicks alone: Target CPA, Target ROAS, Maximize conversions, Maximize conversion value and Target impression share don’t use it. The targeting guide has the table for every kind of adjustment.

Smart Bidding reads the list instead. Google lists the remarketing list among its signals: it can optimize bids “based on which remarketing list someone belongs to”, and on Search by how recently the person joined it and by “each list a user is on for a given campaign or ad group”. Its page on Targeting and Observation says first-party segments “added under the ‘Observation’ setting will be used as signals for Smart Bidding strategies”.

So under Smart Bidding, add the list on Observation and set no adjustment. You don’t need a list for each stretch of days either. Smart Bidding takes into account how long someone has been on a segment, so in Google’s words “you don’t need to categorize the segments based on duration”.

The setting itself holds under every strategy. Google says Smart Bidding “will still consider targeting and exclusions”, so a campaign set to Targeting shows to its lists alone, and an excluded list stays excluded.

A customer list may already be in use. Google’s guide to Customer Match says Smart Bidding includes every customer list in the account without being asked, and its timeline gives Search ads as launched in Q3 of 2023, though a sentence on the same page still says this “will soon be available for in-feed ads and Search ads”. Add the list to the campaign yourself all the same: only a list the campaign names is reported as a row.

Once a list is in a campaign, Google Ads reports what its people cost and what they bought. One row says little by itself. Set it beside the rest of its campaign:

1. 01Go to Campaigns › Audiences, keywords, and content › Audiences. In the Audience segments module choose Campaign view, then Show table, and set the date range to the last 30 days.
2. 02Note the list’s cost and conversions, and the campaign’s own from Campaigns › Campaigns. Take the list’s from the campaign’s. What’s left is the rest of the campaign.
3. 03Divide the rest’s cost by its conversions. That is what everyone else paid for a conversion.
4. 04Divide the list’s cost by that price. The answer is what its spend would have bought at their rate.
5. 05If the list bought over twice that, or under half, ask whether it could be luck. In Google Sheets, BINOMDIST takes the list’s conversions, the campaign’s conversions, the list’s share of the campaign’s cost, and TRUE, and returns the chance of that few or fewer. For a list that bought more than expected, give it one conversion fewer and take the answer from 1: the chance of that many or more.
6. 06Multiply the chance by the number of rows you compared, in every campaign, since each was another chance for luck to show. Under 5%, the gap is worth acting on.

Read each row against the campaign less that row, never against the other lists. A row holds the people on the list who also met the campaign’s targeting, and where a searcher is on more than one of a campaign’s lists, Google’s page says “the segment with highest bid adjustment receives the impression attribution”. Where your account records a real conversion value, compare the return as well, and act when both are over twice, or both under half.

What the sum tells you to change depends on which way the gap runs, and on the bid strategy:

• A list far above the rest, under manual bidding or Maximize clicks: raise its bid adjustment.
• A list far above the rest, under Smart Bidding: there is no bid to raise, since the bidding already reads the list. Look at the rest instead. If the campaign’s keywords only pay for past visitors, that is an RLSA campaign, and it belongs on Targeting.
• A list far below the rest: exclude one that bought nothing, in the Exclusions module on the Audiences page. Existing customers in a campaign meant for new ones are one such list. For one that converted at a worse price, lower its bid adjustment where the bid strategy applies one.
• A list with too little spend to judge: leave it on Observation and read it again next month.

Every day Goldbeater reads the audiences in each enabled campaign and ad group, with the setting they sit under. A campaign can only say what it’s for in its name, so Goldbeater reads the name beside the setting, and raises a campaign or ad group where the two disagree, either way:

• Set to Targeting, and not named for an audience. A Search or Shopping campaign or ad group with an audience in it, set to Targeting, whose name doesn’t say it’s meant for one. Its ads show only to the people in its audiences. Goldbeater drafts the switch to Observation.
• Named for an audience, and set to Observation. One whose name carries a word for an audience, such as remarketing, retargeting, RLSA, visitors, cart abandoners, existing customers or customer list. Its ads show to everyone. The finding says to switch it to Targeting if that’s what it’s for, and drafts nothing: Goldbeater drafts only the change that hands reach back.

An ad group is read by its campaign’s name as well as its own. A setting with no audience under it narrows nothing, and isn’t raised. The finding reads medium where the campaign or ad group spent a thousandth of the account’s last 30 days or more, and low under that.

That is the campaign worked above. The finding’s table is the two rows of the sum, and its cost is the campaign’s $1,088, of which $250 reached the people the campaign is named for. One of its lists is a customer list, which an account can target only where it meets Customer Match’s requirements.

Goldbeater also runs the sum above on every audience with spend, each beside the rest of its campaign or ad group. It raises one that bought under half the conversions its spend would have at the rest’s rate, on at least $20, where so few is unlikely by chance once every audience tested in your account is allowed for (5% overall). Where your conversion value is real, its return has to be under half as well. That finding says to exclude an audience that bought nothing, and to lower one that converted by −50% where the bid strategy applies an audience bid adjustment.

It raises an audience that bought over twice as many only in a campaign bidding manually or to Maximize clicks, and advises a +20% bid adjustment. Sofas — RLSA bids to Maximize conversion value, so its past visitors’ 9 sales are no finding of that kind. On Manual CPC, the same rows would be. Both findings are advice, with no change drafted. Where you count a cart or a form on the way to a sale, only the last step counts.

A customer list gone out of date is in the Customer Match guide, devices, demographics and cities are in the targeting guide, and the audit checklist has every targeting line with where to find it in Google Ads.

What does RLSA stand for in Google Ads?

Remarketing lists for search ads: using a list of past visitors or customers in a Search campaign, to bid differently for them or to show an ad to them alone. Google Ads now calls the lists your data segments, and the feature your data segments for Search ads.

Should an RLSA list be on Observation or Targeting?

Observation, where the campaign should keep showing to everyone and you want the list reported, or used by Smart Bidding. Targeting, where the campaign was built for the people on the list alone, since Targeting shows the ads only to them. Google recommends Observation for all Search campaigns.

How many people does a remarketing list need to work on Search?

Google’s help pages give two figures. Its pages on data segments say a list needs at least 100 active visitors or users within the last 30 days on the Google Search Network. Its page on your data segments for Search ads says 1,000 cookies. A list whose Search size in Audience manager is 1,000 or more is at or past the larger of the two.

How long does someone stay on a remarketing list for Search?

For the list’s membership duration: 30 days by default, and 540 days at most on Google Search. Each visit to a tagged page starts the count again. Google suggests a duration about as long as your sales cycle.

Do bid adjustments on a remarketing list work with Smart Bidding?

No. Manual bidding and Maximize clicks apply an audience bid adjustment, and Target CPA, Target ROAS, Maximize conversions and Maximize conversion value don’t. Smart Bidding uses the lists added to a campaign as signals when it sets each bid, so add the list on Observation and set no adjustment.

Does an RLSA campaign need keywords?

Yes. Google says keywords are required for a Search campaign that uses your data segments under either setting, except in Dynamic Search Ads campaigns. The list narrows or informs who the keywords reach, and doesn’t replace them.

Can I use remarketing lists in a Shopping campaign?

Yes. Google lists your data among the segments a Standard Shopping campaign takes, recommends Observation for Shopping as it does for Search, and marks Shopping campaigns as taking a bid adjustment on a remarketing list under manual bidding.