Become great at maximizing audiences for PPC campaigns

Go beyond keywords & reap higher returns on your PPC ad spend

Online course

By Joe Martinez & Michelle Morgan

Course length: 6h 00min

Some of the companies that train their teams at CXL:


Learn advanced techniques to create, refine, & convert laser-targeted PPC audiences

Yes, keywords matter. But at the end of the day, keywords don’t buy. People do.

In this 6-class course, Joe Martinez and Michelle Morgan will teach you everything you need to know to build higher-converting PPC audiences for Search, Display, and Paid Social.

Course overview

Advanced search marketers:
it’s time to gain the audience advantage

Feel like you’re focusing too much on keywords and missing the PPC forest for the trees?

You might well be.

Many PPC marketers spend a ton of time on keywords — and while choosing the right keywords is important, that’s just one piece of the puzzle. To be a truly effective PPC marketer, you have to know how to connect with people, not keywords.

This advanced course on audiences will improve your PPC returns. You’ll learn how to:

  • Find & refine your target audience(s) — so you never spend a dime of your ad budget on the wrong people
  • Structure your campaigns and ad groups to maximize audience performance — not to mention you’ll make it much easier to navigate your ads accounts
  • Layer & shape your campaigns to avoid audience overlap — while ensuring you still reach the
  • Use your audiences to prove success in other channels — thus squeezing every ounce of value out of your ad spend
  • And a whole lot more.

You’ll walk away knowing exactly what to implement in your campaigns — from identifying exactly where in your funnel your audience exists, to guiding them right through the final conversion.

Plus, Joe and Michelle will show you new ways to create ads that your competitors can’t replicate.

After taking this course, you’ll:

  • Earn better ROAs: Define your target audiences & market more effectively with your existing PPC budget
  • Multiply your impact across channels: Use your newly super-powered audiences for retargeting
  • Get negative: Discover advanced strategies for negative audience creation & audience shaping
  • Write more specific ads: Learn how Joe and Michelle write better ads from their PPC audiences

Skills you will master

CopywritingMarketing campaignsRetargetingAudiencesPPC campaigns

Will Gray

The Maximizing Audiences for PPC was f*cking excellent!!! I watched the videos many times and recently used some of their tactics and it’s working! CXL ain’t nuttin’ but the truth.

Elveena Yessoo

The course was clear and concise. It’s practical-focused rather than theoretical, so it was relatively easy to apply the different tactics to our clients’ accounts.

Ideal for marketers who…

  • Can easily navigate Google Ads, Google Analytics, and Google Tag Manager
  • Are already using audiences in your PPC campaigns, but who don’t feel confident about your targeting
  • Need to know where to go to find your target audience
    Feel starved for new ad copy ideas in your search and display campaigns

This course is probably not for you if…

  • You have zero experience creating PPC campaigns for the Search and Display Networks
  • You’re unfamiliar with audiences in paid search
  • You only focus on the Search Network, OR you only believe in keyword or placement targeting in the Display Network

Meet your award-winning instructors

Joe Martinez – Top 25 Influential PPC Expert (PPC Hero)

Joe Martinez is the Director of Paid Media and Community for Granular in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He is also the current and founding President of MKEsearch. While he is hands-on in all aspects of PPC, his true passions lie in Display, Remarketing, and YouTube.

He is a regular contributor for Search Engine Land and has written for PPC Hero, SEMrush, Leadpages, Optmyzr, Unbounce and AdStage. He has hosted webinars for SEMrush, Unbounce, and Bing Ads. He has also spoken at industry-leading conferences such as SMX Advanced, SMX West, SMX East, HeroConf, Confluence Conference, Digital Olympus and more. In 2017 and 2018, he was named a Top 25 Influential PPC Expert by PPC Hero.

Michelle Morgan – SEM Speaker of the Year (Search Engine Land Awards)

Michelle Morgan is the Director Client Services at Clix Marketing. She got her start right out of college as an in-house PPC pro in 2010. After developing the fundamental skills for PPC, she wanted to take things to next level.  She made the jump to the agency world at Clix in 2012. Since then, she’s expanded her knowledge in all fields needed for PPC: Search, Social, Display, Remarketing, and Analytics.

She manages accounts in many different industries and markets, but will always have a soft spot for lead gen. In 2018, Michelle won “SEM Speaker of the Year” at the Search Engine Land Awards.

Get a lesson preview

  • Go beyond keyword research in your paid campaigns

    Keywords are not audiences. Learn why building audiences is so important in this free lesson.

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Your full course curriculum:

Maximizing audiences for your PPC campaigns

1 Finding your target audiences in existing tools

Persona research can be extremely helpful when you’re trying to figure out who your ideal customers are. But not everyone has the budget or time to conduct a big study. Luckily, Google Analytics and social insight tools put tons of data at your fingert

2 Creating good retargeting audiences for targeting, exclusion and then lookalike modeling

It’s important to be build audiences that serve your marketing goals beyond simple targeting. Don’t think solely about who you want to target — think about you who want to exclude. Plus, your audiences form the foundation for two powerful advanced appr

3 Intent-based audiences for remarketing

Who’s more likely to convert — the person who merely visits a page on your website or the person who starts to fill out a form? We all know it’s Person #2. So let’s focus on them. In this class, you’ll see how to create audiences based on user actions

4 Utilizing Audiences in the Search Network

Don’t forget that remarketing exists in Search, too! We’ll go over all the options you have with Remarketing Lists for Search Ads (RLSA), and how you can create better ads using the audiences you just built. Lesson Objectives: Learn the types of audien

5 Building a funnel with audiences

Only a very small portion of your target audience will be willing to convert on your ultimate (read: revenue-generating) call to action the first time they’re introduced to your offer. This leaves a large group of known users untapped for revenue. In t

6 Leveraging your audience across channels

Each channel has its own strengths and weaknesses, but who’s to say we can’t leverage them across channels? This lesson will discuss ways to bring the strengths of search, social, and display together to reach the right audience at the right time. Less

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Learn how to maximize PPC audiences: FAQ

Who is this course for?

This course is essential for you if you:

  • Can easily navigate Google Ads, Google Analytics, and Google Tag Manager
  • Are already using audiences in your PPC campaigns, but who don’t feel confident about your targeting
  • Need to know where to go to find your target audience
  • Feel starved for new ad copy ideas in your search and display campaigns

Some careers that will especially benefit from this course are PPC specialist, paid media specialist, SEM specialist, SEO specialist, growth marketer, demand gen manager, product marketer, and ecommerce marketer.

What will you learn?

After taking this course, you will:

  • Earn better ROAs: Define your target audiences & market more effectively with your existing PPC budget
  • Multiply your impact across channels: Use your newly super-powered audiences for retargeting
  • Get negative: Discover advanced strategies for negative audience creation & audience shaping
  • Write more specific ads: Learn how Joe and Michelle write better ads from their PPC audiences

What does the course include?

Our PPC Audience Targeting training includes 6 lessons, 7 downloadable resources, 6h 00min of video material, several assignments, and a final exam.

Are subtitles available for the lessons?

Lessons have English subtitles and transcriptions available.

Will I receive a certificate of completion?

After taking this course, you will receive the PPC Audience Targeting Certification from CXL, with credentials that you can add to your LinkedIn profile.

What is the refund policy?

All plans come with a 7-day refund period .

Can I buy just this course?

Yes, you can buy individual, lifetime access to this training.

How long will it take for me to finish it?

This is entirely up to you – it’s how many study hours per week you can put in. This course is 6h 00min long.