Google Ads Reach Planner is a powerful tool within the Google Ads UI that can predict total user reach, costs, and frequency based on a number of audiences and budgetary inputs. I have personally used the tool for projection presentations a number of times now and the media plans the reach planner outputs are well-received by clients. Generally, the projections are decently accurate – especially if you give the tool more data points. Quite recently, Google made updates to the planner which added a few more bells and whistles, changed the user flow, and made it a little easier to navigate. Let’s dive into the latest version of this tool as if we had never used it before and were creating a new media plan.
Choose Your Goal, Channel, Location, and Demographic Settings
At the beginning, we have to choose a goal for our selected campaign. Right now, the current selections are limited as they are still preparing the new version of the tool – so our only option for this example is “Awareness”. Then, we move down and choose our channel. For this example, we’ll choose YouTube only because of the ad types I will choose later. Following your goal and channel selections are location settings and demographic filters. Since I’m a Chicago guy, that will be our selected location and we will keep our age minimum at the youngest age Google allows, 18, and make the maximum 24, and include all genders.
Choose Your Audience(s)
Above, I chose the youngest demographic because as we make more audience selections, we want to narrow the audience even further for the most accurate media plan. For this example, we’re ultimately aiming for early adopters in the tech marketplace. We decide to target technophiles, which is an affinity audience. After narrowing our audience, we must choose dates for the media flight. In this example, we’ll run the campaign for one month. – Read more
