Google Ads introduces new Limit audience reach setting

Google Ads is showing a new “Limit audience reach” setting, replacing the previous Optimised Targeting on/off switch with three options for controlling how campaigns reach selected audience segments.

Arpan Banerjee shared this change on X, describing it as: “No more ON / OFF — Google has replaced the Optimised Targeting switch with a new ‘Limit audience reach’ setting.”

The new setting provides three choices:

• Do not limit reach (recommended): Allows campaigns to reach people beyond the selected audience segments.
• Limit reach to people matching only age and gender segments: Restricts reach based on selected age and gender criteria.
• Limit reach to people matching all segments: Restricts ads to people matching all selected audience segments. Google notes that this option is intended for retargeting when your data is the only audience segment.

Google also displays a warning that limiting audience reach can lower campaign performance and potentially leave campaigns without enough people to show ads to.

Here is the screenshot Arpan shared showing the new audience reach setting in Google Ads.

This gives advertisers more clearly labelled options for controlling audience reach, while highlighting the possible impact of restricting campaigns to specific audience segments.