How can you use targeting to increase display ad bidding?

1 Why targeting matters

Targeting matters because it helps you reach your ideal customers who are more likely to be interested in your products or services, and avoid wasting your budget on irrelevant or unqualified traffic. Targeting also helps you improve your ad relevance, which is the measure of how well your ads match the needs and preferences of your audience. Ad relevance affects your quality score, which is a rating that Google assigns to your ads based on several factors, such as expected click-through rate, landing page experience, and ad format. A higher quality score means that your ads are more likely to be shown in higher positions and at lower costs, which can boost your return on investment (ROI).

3 How to increase display ad bidding with targeting

To increase your display ad bidding with targeting, you need to consider your bid strategy and bid adjustments. Manual bidding allows you to control your bids for each ad group or placement, while automated bidding lets Google adjust your bids for you based on your campaign goals and performance. Automated bid strategies include Cost-per-click (CPC), Cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM), Cost-per-acquisition (CPA), and Viewable cost-per-thousand impressions (vCPM). Additionally, you can use bid adjustments to change your bids based on targeting criteria such as keywords, topics, placements, audiences, locations, or devices. This can help you optimize your bids for the most relevant and profitable segments of your audience and increase your chances of winning the ad auction.

4 How to measure and optimize your targeting performance

To measure and optimize your targeting performance, you need to track and analyze your campaign data and metrics, such as impressions, clicks, conversions, cost, revenue, and ROI. You can use Google Ads reports and tools, such as the Display Network tab, the Audience Insights report, the Placement report, and the Google Analytics integration, to access and visualize your data and metrics. You can also use Google Ads experiments and drafts to test and compare different targeting options and bid strategies, and see how they affect your results. By measuring and optimizing your targeting performance, you can identify and focus on the most effective and efficient targeting combinations, and adjust your bids accordingly.

5 How to avoid common targeting mistakes

Targeting can help you increase your display ad bidding and improve your ad performance, but it can also lead to mistakes that can hurt your results. To avoid overlapping targeting, use targeting options that complement each other and avoid duplicating or conflicting criteria. Under-targeting can reduce relevance and increase waste, so use targeting options that narrow down and segment your audience, and match their needs and preferences. Additionally, neglecting negative targeting can result in showing ads to the wrong audience, so use negative keywords or placements to filter out unwanted traffic and improve ad quality and ROI.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?