10 GA4 audiences you should be using (but probably aren't)

I look at a lot of GA4 properties. Dozens every year. And the audiences section is almost always the same: “All Users” and “Purchasers.” Maybe “New Users” if someone got ambitious. That’s it.

This drives me a little crazy because GA4 audiences are genuinely powerful. They sync directly to Google Ads. They update in real time. They support predictive metrics. And almost nobody uses them beyond the defaults.

I’m going to walk through 10 specific audiences you can build today that will actually make a difference in your marketing. Not vague concepts. Exact configurations you can set up in GA4 right now.

Why GA4 audiences matter more than you think

Quick context if you’re wondering why this matters. GA4 audiences aren’t just for reports. When you link GA4 to Google Ads (which you should have done already), audiences created in GA4 automatically become available as remarketing lists in Google Ads. That means every audience below can be used for ad targeting, bid adjustments, and exclusions.

The targeting is also more nuanced than what you can build inside Google Ads directly. GA4 sees on-site behavior at a granular level, especially when you have a solid event tracking strategy in place. Google Ads sees clicks and conversions. Combining both gives you audiences that are based on what people actually did on your site, not just how they arrived.

Alright. Here are the ten.

1. Cart abandoners (added to cart, didn’t purchase in 7 days)

This one seems obvious but I rarely see it configured correctly. Most people create a “cart abandoner” audience that’s too broad or too narrow.

How to set it up: Go to Admin > Audiences > New Audience > Create a custom audience.

Set the condition to: users who performed the add_to_cart event in the last 7 days (make sure your ecommerce tracking fires this event correctly first). Then add an exclusion: exclude users who performed the purchase event in the last 7 days.

Set the membership duration to 7 days.

Why 7 days and not 30? Because a cart abandoner from three weeks ago probably isn’t coming back for that specific cart. After a week, you’re remarketing a general message, not recovering a specific purchase intent. Keep the audience tight.

In Google Ads: Use this audience for a dedicated remarketing campaign with specific messaging about completing their purchase. Bid aggressively. These users already showed purchase intent.

2. High-value browsers (viewed 5+ products, no purchase)

These are window shoppers with serious interest. Someone who looks at five or more products in a session is actively comparing options. They’re not casually browsing.

Setup: Create a custom audience with an event condition: view_item with event count greater than or equal to 5. Add a sequence condition: this should happen within a single session. Exclude users who triggered purchase in the last 30 days.

Membership duration: 14 days.

In Google Ads: These users respond well to social proof ads (reviews, ratings) and limited-time offers. They’re past the awareness stage. They need a push.

3. Repeat purchasers (2+ purchases in 90 days)

Your best customers. The ones you should be treating differently from first-time buyers.

Setup: Event condition: purchase event with event count greater than or equal to 2 within a 90-day membership duration.

In Google Ads: Use this audience two ways. First, create a lookalike (similar) audience from it for prospecting. Google is good at finding people who resemble your repeat buyers. Second, use it for cross-sell campaigns. These people already trust you. Show them products in related categories.

4. Blog readers who never convert

If you’re investing in content marketing, you should know whether it’s producing customers or just pageviews.

Setup: Condition: page_view event where page_location contains /blog/ with event count greater than or equal to 3 in the last 30 days. Exclude users who completed your conversion event (purchase, signup, whatever your goal is) in the last 90 days.

Membership duration: 30 days.

Why this matters: If this audience is large, your blog is attracting the wrong people or failing to convert the right ones. Either way, you need to know. In Google Ads, you can run a targeted campaign specifically for blog readers pushing them toward a conversion-oriented page.

5. Pricing page viewers who didn’t sign up

For SaaS and service businesses, the pricing page is the highest-intent page on your site besides checkout. Someone who views pricing is actively evaluating.

Setup: Condition: page_view event where page_location contains /pricing (adjust the path to match your URL). Exclude users who performed your signup or purchase event in the last 30 days.

Membership duration: 14 days.

In Google Ads: This is your highest-value remarketing audience for lead gen. These people were evaluating your pricing. Hit them with case studies, testimonials, free trial offers. Be specific about overcoming whatever objection made them leave without signing up.

6. Churning users (active 30 days ago, inactive since)

GA4 doesn’t have a built-in “churn” metric for non-app properties, but you can build one with audience conditions.

Setup: Create a sequence-based audience. Step 1: user was active (any event) between 30 and 60 days ago. Step 2: user has NOT been active in the last 30 days. Use the “is not” operator on any event within the last 30 days.

Membership duration: 30 days (so users drop out of this audience if they return).

In Google Ads: Run a win-back campaign. Different messaging than your standard remarketing. Acknowledge they’ve been away. Offer an incentive. Show them what’s new. These users already know you, which means acquisition cost should be much lower than finding new prospects.

7. Mobile-only users with high engagement

This audience catches people who exclusively use mobile and engage heavily. These users have different behavior patterns than desktop users and deserve different ad creative.

Setup: Condition: device_category exactly matches mobile. Add a metric condition: engagement_time greater than 120 seconds (or whatever threshold represents high engagement for your site). Exclude users where device_category matches desktop or tablet at any point in the membership window.

Membership duration: 30 days.

In Google Ads: Use mobile-specific ad formats and landing pages for this audience. These are people who will probably convert on mobile too. Make sure your mobile checkout or signup flow is tight before you start bidding on this group.

8. Users from specific campaigns who converted

This is less of a remarketing audience and more of a seed audience for lookalikes. It answers the question: “Which campaign is bringing me the best customers?”

Setup: Condition: purchase or your conversion event where session_source / medium or campaign matches your specific campaign. You’ll create one of these for each major campaign.

Membership duration: 90 days.

In Google Ads: Export this as a similar audience. You’re telling Google: “Find me more people like the ones who converted from this specific campaign.” It’s more targeted than a general purchaser lookalike because it’s filtered by acquisition channel. Users who convert from organic search might be very different from users who convert from paid social. Let Google find more of the right type.

9. Cross-device users

These are users who visit your site from more than one device type. They tend to be more engaged and more likely to convert, but they’re also harder to track.

Setup: This requires Google Signals to be enabled (Admin > Data Settings > Data Collection). Create a custom audience where device_category includes more than one value across the membership window. In practice, you’ll need to use a sequence: Step 1 with device_category = mobile, followed by Step 2 with device_category = desktop (or vice versa).

Membership duration: 30 days.

In Google Ads: These users are further along in the funnel. They came back on a second device, which means they remembered you and deliberately returned. Your ads to this audience should reflect that intent level. No awareness messaging. Go straight for the conversion ask.

10. Predictive audiences (likely to purchase / likely to churn)

This is the one most people don’t know exists. GA4 has built-in machine learning that predicts user behavior, and you can build audiences based on those predictions.

Setup: Go to Audiences > New > Suggested audiences. Look for “Likely 7-day purchasers” and “Likely 7-day churning users.” These are pre-built by GA4’s predictive model.

Prerequisites: Your property needs at least 1,000 returning users who triggered the relevant condition (purchase or churn) and 1,000 who didn’t, within a 28-day window. If you don’t see these audiences available, your traffic volume isn’t high enough yet. For most ecommerce sites doing over 500 transactions a month, you’ll qualify. If you need deeper analysis on these segments, exporting your data to BigQuery opens up much more flexibility.

In Google Ads: “Likely to purchase” is your hottest remarketing audience. These users haven’t converted yet, but GA4’s model thinks they will. Bid heavily on them. “Likely to churn” gets a win-back campaign similar to audience #6, but you’re catching them before they actually churn.

The audience nobody builds but should: negative audiences

Here’s a bonus that’s arguably more important than any of the ten above.

Create a “Recent Converters” audience: users who performed your conversion event in the last 30 days. Then use this as an exclusion in Google Ads.

Why? Because you’re probably remarketing to people who already bought from you yesterday. That’s wasted spend. It’s also annoying for the customer. “Hey, want to buy this thing you just bought?” No. They don’t.

Exclude recent converters from your remarketing campaigns. Exclude them from your prospecting campaigns too if your product has a long repurchase cycle. The money you save goes directly to your bottom line.

For repeat purchase products (consumables, subscriptions), adjust the exclusion window to match your typical repurchase cycle. If people reorder every 45 days, exclude converters for 30 days and start remarketing again at day 31.

Connecting it all to Google Ads

Once you’ve created these audiences in GA4, they’ll automatically appear in Google Ads under Audience Manager (assuming your GA4 and Google Ads accounts are linked). It can take 24-48 hours for the audiences to populate.

A few things to keep in mind. GA4 audiences need at least 1,000 users in them before Google Ads will use them for Search and Shopping campaigns. Display and YouTube campaigns can work with 100 users. So for smaller sites, start with broader audiences and narrow down as your lists grow.

Also, these audiences are retroactive for up to 30 days. When you create a new audience today, GA4 will backfill users who match the criteria from the last 30 days. You won’t start with an empty list.

Start with three, not ten

Don’t try to build all ten of these today. Pick the three that match your business model best. For ecommerce, start with cart abandoners (#1), repeat purchasers (#3), and the negative audience (converters exclusion). For SaaS, start with pricing page viewers (#5), churning users (#6), and blog readers (#4).

Build them. Connect them to Google Ads. Run campaigns against them for a month. Then come back and add the rest.

The difference between a Google Ads account with generic “all visitors” remarketing and one with ten behavioral audiences is significant. I’ve seen ROAS improvements of 40-60% from audience segmentation alone. Same budget, same ads, just smarter targeting.

Your GA4 data is sitting there. Use it.