Last Updated on January 19, 2021 by Santhosh Muralidhar

When it comes to the topic “placement targeting GDN”, we are basically thinking of putting ads on the publisher’s properties.

To Succeed in Display Network Advertising it’s important to do proper placement targeting for the display campaigns.

In this blog let’s have a closer look at 3 important facts in Placement targeting on the Google display network.

1. If You Don’t Want Managed Placements, Use Automatic Placement Targeting.

Automatic Placement Targeting is a great thing for people who do not want to manage the placement’s on which the ads are shown.

In simple terms, in Automatic Placement targeting GDN, Google will itself automatically place your ads across its publisher’s websites, channels & apps.

Also, an important fact to note here, in this case, is that Google does an AND combination Logic of your Audience targeting And  Keyword targeting to put your ads in their publisher’s properties.  

Now what this also implies is that advertisers will not have the opportunity and control to select the websites and other placements that are performing well for their campaigns.

Because in automatic placement targeting google’s algorithm does all the placement targeting giving no option for advertisers.

Also, the other important thing is that as we all know a lot of publishers try to trick google through click fraud activity.

Now your ads might also show up on such sites because your targeted audience might be browsing that website.

So, in such a case, you might get a lot of fraudulent clicks and conversions leading to a drain of your marketing budget.

Although Google does its best to filter out fraud clicks in your reports, this is a difficult challenge that is being faced by not just google but with the entire advertising industry.

So, then what are the Solutions to the Drawbacks of Automatic Placement Targeting?

2. Use Managed Placement Targeting to Show Ads on only Targeted & Authentic Websites.

In Placement Targeting GDN, Managed targeting can be set to ensure that the ads are shown only on your targeted websites, apps, youtube channels, and videos.

Now you might ask me a question “How to select the placements manually & how do we know that they are authentic placements?”

Let me answer your questions with the help of the following steps:

1.Go to Your Campaign & Click on Placements from the Left Side.

2. And then click on the edit placement icon & choose edit placements.

3.Select Your Ad group

4. Type in your keyword or URL related to your website.

5. Click on Websites.

Now manually verify and authenticate all the websites by visiting those websites. 

Similarly, do the same process for youtube video channel and videos and apps.

You will have to go and visit their videos and apps to ensure that the content present on those online properties suits your marketing goals and business needs.  

Example Case:

Let say for example we wanted to promote a digital marketing tool like SEMrush through the Google Display Network. Here is what we can do.

Just enter search engine marketing in the search field.

See now Google Ads says we can target 200+ placements, 1000+ videos and a bunch of youtube channels and apps for promoting this tool SEMrush.

Of course, we need to check and verify and authenticate if these placement suggestions fit our marketing objectives.

For example, when I click on websites, in this case, I see a list of suggested websites like 10bestseo.com, smallseotools.com, etc.

I have to go and visit each of these websites and check manually that they have content related to search engine marketing and search engine optimization.

Because in this case, we are actually trying to promote a digital marketing tool.   

Also, we must also ensure that we keep a note on the impression per week stats of the websites.

Similarly, we can also think of putting our ad on specific youtube videos.

Just click on youtube videos underneath youtube channels in the edit placement targeting option.

And then you will be able to see all the related youtube videos of digital marketing like say example, Sourav Jain’s search engine marketing video, Surfside PPC video and lot more.   

Remember to choose only those videos that are relevant to your product or service that is being promoted by you. Also, it is a good practice to place your ads on relevant videos that have, amount of video views.

3. Select All the Ad group Settings & Options Properly in Placement Targeting GDN.

When we choose managed placement targeting, we have the option to either, choose the observation option or choose the targeting option.

The targeting option narrows the reach of your ad group to specific audiences, keywords, and placements.

Whereas the observation option will get you reports on additional things without narrowing the reach of the ad group to specific audiences.

You can edit the ad group targeting option from your dashboard.

If you want to target specific keywords, placements and audience then choose the targeting option. This would basically narrow the reach of your display campaign.

Choosing the Additional Observation option will help you get more reports and allow you to set individual bids for every placement or keyword.

If you select the automatic targeting method then it will increase the clicks for your campaigns by 20%.

I hope you got some great ideas on various targeting options in placement targeting GDN.

If you like this article please do share it on social media sites with your friends.   

Thanks.