[GA4] How to advertise to unconverted users

This article continues from How to measure conversions with Google Analytics and provides instructions on how to use Google Analytics to enhance advertisements using conversion data.

Understand conversions and advertisements

So far, you've added the Google Analytics measurement code to your website, configured an event that measures when someone submits the lead-generation form, and marked the event as a conversion. After some time has passed, you can use the data you collect from your conversion events to improve the advertisements you run on Google Ads to generate more leads on your website.

You can improve your advertisements in a few ways:

• Advertise to converted users
• Advertise to people who are similar to converted users
• Use your conversion data to improve your Google Ads bids

This article shows you how to create an audience of unconverted users and then import the audiences into your Google Ads accounts. Note that once you connect your Google Ads account to Google Analytics, you can import any audience and conversion data into Google Ads.

Understand audiences

An audience is a group of people who have certain attributes in common. For example, an audience could include people who purchased from an online store, people who added items to a wishlist, or people who submitted a specific form.

Google Analytics provides some audiences by default, such as users who have unlocked a specific achievement, users who have started the checkout process but didn't complete their purchase, and users who are potential business leads. Make sure to review the list of suggested and predictive audiences before creating your own audiences.

Once you have an audience, you can import the audience into your linked Google Ads accounts and use the audience to advertise to people who match the defined attributes.

Connect to Google Ads

If you want to use your conversion and audience data in Google Ads, you need to link your Google Analytics property to your Google Ads account. If you don't have a Google Ads account, start by creating an account.

To link your property to Google Ads:

1. In Admin, under Product links, click Google Ads links.
   Note: The previous link opens to the last Analytics property you accessed. You can change the property using the property selector. You must be an Editor or above at the property level to link your property to Google Ads.
2. Click Link.
3. Click Choose Google Ads accounts, then select the Google Ads accounts you want to link.
4. Click Confirm.
5. Click Next, then review your settings.
6. Click Submit to link your accounts with the current settings.

When you create a link between Google Ads and Google Analytics, you will begin to see Google Ads data in your Google Analytics reports and you will be able to use your Analytics data in Google Ads.

Activate Google signals

The last step to make your audiences available in the Audience Manager of Google Ads is to activate Google signals. Activating Google signals lets you collect data from users who use your website while signed in to their Google account.

To activate Google Signals:

1. In Admin, under Data collection and modification, click Data collection.
   Note: The previous link opens to the last Analytics property you accessed. You can change the property using the property selector. You must be an Editor or above at the property level to activate Google signals.
2. Click Get started.
3. Click Continue.
4. Review the information about activating Google signals and then click Activate.

Create an audience of unconverted users

You can create an audience of people who did not convert on your website. This audience could help you reach other people who showed interest in your business, but didn't complete the action that's valuable to your business.

To create the audience:

1. In Admin, under Data display, click Audiences.
   Note: The previous link opens to the last Analytics property you accessed. You can change the property using the property selector. You must be a Marketer or above  at the property level to create audiences.
2. Click New audience. If you don't see the button, you don't have permission to create an audience.
3. Click Create a custom audience.
4. Click Add group to exclude.
5. In the Temporarily exclude Users when section, click Add new condition.
6. In the drop-down menu, select the lead_form_submit event.
7. In the top right, click Save.

Once you create the audience, you can click the audience name to open a report with data about the audience.

Advertise to similar people

The final step is to advertise to the unconverted users. For this final step, you need to head over to Google Ads.

To find your audiences in Google Ads:

1. Sign in to your Google Ads account.
2. Along the top, click Tools and settings.
3. Under Shared Library, click Audience manager.

The audience names from Google Analytics will have the following structure:

[ the name of the audience ] of [ the name of the Google Analytics 4 property ]

If the Google Analytics property is called "Lead Generation Tutorial - GA4", then you would look for the following audience:

4. Click the check box next to the audience you want to add.
5. Along the top, click Add to... > Campaigns.
6. Select the campaign and click Next.
7. Choose a targeting setting and click Add audience segments.

Next: How to attribute credit for conversions