Glossary
Audience Signals
Audience Signals are inputs provided to Google's Performance Max campaigns that suggest which user segments are most likely to convert. Unlike traditional audience targeting — which restricts delivery to specified segments — audience signals serve as suggestions that guide the AI's initial exploration, after which the algorithm expands to find additional converters beyond the provided signals. Audience signals can include first-party data (Customer Match lists, website visitors, app users), Google audience segments (in-market, affinity, demographic), and custom segments. Strong audience signals accelerate PMax's learning phase by starting from known converters rather than exploring from zero.