Remarketing Lists for Search Ads (RLSA) is one of the most underused targeting tools in Google Ads. Most advertisers apply the same bid to every person who types their target keyword, regardless of whether that person has never heard of them or visited their pricing page three times in the past week. RLSA lets you separate these audiences and bid accordingly, paying more for high-intent previous visitors and less (or nothing) for cold traffic that history suggests is unlikely to convert.
What Is RLSA and How Does It Work?
RLSA is a Google Ads feature that lets you customise your search ad campaigns based on whether a searcher has previously visited your website or interacted with your brand. Unlike standard display remarketing, RLSA only shows ads when someone performs a search, it does not follow users around the web with banner ads.
The mechanic is straightforward: you attach an audience list to an ad group or campaign and set a bid adjustment. For example, if you have an audience of users who added a product to their basket but did not purchase, you can bid 50% higher for those users when they search your target keywords. Because they have demonstrated strong intent already, they are statistically more likely to convert than a new visitor, and the higher bid is justified.
RLSA lists require a minimum of 1,000 active users before they become eligible for targeting in search. This threshold means RLSA is most effective for websites with meaningful traffic volumes, typically 5,000 or more monthly visitors.
What Audience Lists Should You Create for RLSA?
The value of RLSA is entirely dependent on the quality and granularity of your audience lists. Generic lists produce generic results.
All Website Visitors (Last 30 Days)
The baseline list. Anyone who has visited any page on your site within the past 30 days. Use this as a catch-all with a moderate bid uplift (20 to 30%) and as a foundation for building more specific lists.
Product or Service Page Visitors
Users who visited a specific service or product page have expressed interest in that offering. Create separate lists for each key service or product category. A law firm might build separate lists for "wills and probate visitors," "employment law visitors," and "commercial property visitors." Each list can then be bid on separately based on the relative value of that service.
Cart Abandoners or Quote Form Non-Completers
This is typically your highest-value RLSA audience. These users reached your conversion funnel and stopped. The search intent is almost certainly still present, they are likely still comparing options or waiting for the right moment. A bid uplift of 50 to 100% is often justified for this segment, particularly when paired with a tailored ad message acknowledging their previous interest.
Existing Customers
Create a customer match list by uploading a CSV of customer email addresses. Use this list to either exclude existing customers from acquisition campaigns (to avoid paying for clicks from people who already bought) or to run targeted upsell and cross-sell campaigns.
Visitors Who Converted
Exclude converters from acquisition campaigns to avoid wasting budget retargeting people who have already completed the goal. In high-repeat-purchase verticals (e.g. consumables, subscriptions), you can instead create a post-conversion RLSA campaign targeting these users specifically.
High-Engagement Visitors
Create a list based on engagement signals: users who spent more than two minutes on site, visited more than three pages, or scrolled to a specific depth on a key page. Engagement is an imperfect proxy for intent, but high-engagement visitors convert better than average visitors at the cohort level.
How Do You Set Up RLSA in Google Ads?
Step 1: Add the Google Ads Tag to Your Website
RLSA requires the Google Ads conversion tracking tag (or Google Tag Manager) to be implemented on your website. The tag places a cookie on visitors' browsers, making them eligible for remarketing lists. If you already have conversion tracking set up, the tag is likely already in place.
Step 2: Create Audience Lists in Google Ads
Go to Tools and Settings > Shared Library > Audience Manager. Click the blue "+" button to create a new audience. Select "Website visitors" and define the rules:
- Page URL contains: Use URL rules to target specific pages (e.g. any page with "/pricing" in the URL, or your exact checkout page URL).
- Visited page but did not visit another page: Build abandonment audiences by combining a visited page with an "and did not visit" condition for the thank-you page.
- Duration: Standard is 30 days, but consider extending to 90 or 180 days for high-consideration purchases where the decision cycle is long.
Step 3: Attach Lists to Campaigns or Ad Groups
In your campaign settings, navigate to the Audiences tab. Add your audience lists and set the observation mode initially. Observation mode lets you collect performance data for each audience without restricting who sees your ads.
After two to four weeks of data collection, analyse the conversion rates and cost per conversion for each audience segment. Use this data to set bid adjustments.
Step 4: Apply Bid Adjustments
Bid adjustments are percentage increases or decreases applied to a base bid when a searcher matches an audience. The direction and magnitude of adjustment should be data-driven:
- If an audience segment converts at twice the average rate, a +50 to +100% adjustment is reasonable.
- If a segment converts significantly below average, apply a negative adjustment or exclude it entirely.
- Adjust incrementally and monitor the impact before making large changes.
What Is the Difference Between RLSA Observation and Targeting Mode?
Observation mode (formerly "bid only") adds the audience to your campaign without restricting who sees your ads. You can apply bid adjustments, but your ads will still show to users who are not on the list. This is the standard approach for most RLSA campaigns.
Targeting mode (formerly "target and bid") restricts your ads to only show to users on the list. This is a powerful tactic for specific use cases: for example, running a campaign with very broad match keywords that you would only ever want to show to previous site visitors, keeping costs tightly controlled.
Targeting mode is particularly useful for:
- Broad or generic keywords that are too expensive to bid on for all traffic but are acceptable for known past visitors
- Brand keywords when targeting specific audience segments with different messaging
- Reactivation campaigns targeting lapsed customers with specific offers
How Can You Use RLSA to Run Smarter Keyword Strategies?
RLSA unlocks keyword strategies that would be financially reckless for cold audiences.
Suppose you sell commercial kitchen equipment. The keyword "commercial fridge" is broad and expensive, plenty of searchers are researching, not buying. But for someone who has already visited your product pages and pricing, that same search carries a much higher purchase intent. By using targeting mode with a list of product page visitors, you can bid aggressively on "commercial fridge" only for this audience, making the keyword economically viable for a segment it was not viable for before.
Similarly, branded keywords from competitors ("Hobart dishwasher" if you sell competing products) are high-cost and low-conversion for cold traffic. For users who have already compared your product pages, they may be worth bidding on.
What Reporting Should You Set Up for RLSA Performance?
Segment your campaign reports by audience to understand how each list is performing. Key metrics to monitor:
- Conversion rate by audience: Are previous visitors converting at a meaningfully higher rate than new users?
- CPA by audience: Is the higher CPA for some segments justified by the conversion value?
- Impression share by audience: Are you winning auctions for your priority audiences?
Use the audience insights in Google Ads to understand demographic and interest overlap between your highest-converting RLSA segments, then apply those insights to your prospecting campaigns.
How Often Should You Review and Update Your RLSA Lists?
RLSA lists are not set-and-forget. Review them quarterly at a minimum, and update them:
- After major website changes that alter your URL structure (lists built on specific URLs will break)
- After seasonal campaigns, when your audience composition changes significantly
- When adding new products or services that warrant new targeting segments
- When your traffic volume changes enough to move lists above or below the 1,000-user threshold
If you want a PPC team that uses sophisticated audience targeting to make every pound of ad spend work harder, get in touch with Dynamically. We build RLSA strategies into every Google Ads account we manage.
