Google Is Changing the Way We Target Audiences for Display Campaigns

Google will be changing the way we can target audiences for display campaigns, on their network, this September. This provides a good opportunity for us to explain a bit about what goes on with display campaigns, and what kind of adaptations we’re considering to the way we run our display campaigns.

When we talk about display campaigns we’re talking about your banner ads, the kind you can see plastered all around the articles on the Dailymail's website. The most common way we use these adverts is by targeting them at specific audiences, and one of the many ways we can do this is by refining which websites we allow our adverts to show up on.

If we aren’t careful with where, and to who, we present adverts we can quickly find our budgets being spent without the desired return. Despite many new visitors to the website being recorded, if those visitors don’t have any intent of purchasing, they’re of little worth to your business.

This announcement from google states that they will disable a method of excluding display ads from all mobile apps. While enormous amounts of user attention is now coming through smartphones and, as advertisers, we try to follow the attention of desirable consumers, advertising through mobile apps have been a considerable cause for low returns for a few suspect reasons, such as accidental clicks or clicks from children. So much so that us advertisers were resorting to this blanket exclusion of mobile app ad placements.

On balance, this will no doubt be a cause for the potential of much lower cost-per-clicks and a source of cheaper traffic. And this may be a prod from google to take another look at the opportunities available in their display network.

It’s this relationship between the ad and the audience we want to have as much control over as possible whether it’s by where we place the ad or otherwise. This announcement casts doubts over whether we’re getting more or less control with the simplification on google's ad platform. Either way, we’ll be making sure we’re using the best strategies available to us.