Inside Google Ads podcast: Episode 83- Content Targeting
Can you target specific placements or display keywords in Google Ads? Can you exclude them?
Yes, you can. These are different types of content targeting. And although I wrote a bestselling book about Google Ads audiences, audiences are not your only option for highly targeted ads on Google.
Today, I'm answering your questions about Display placements, topics, and keywords, and the viability of the Google Display Network overall.
I'm your host, Jyll Saskin Gales. I spent six years working for big brands at Google, and now I work for you.
This is Inside Google Ads, Episode 83: Content Targeting.
Our first question comes from EricCusimano5273 on YouTube and they say, how do I see exactly what URLs my ads showed on for Display? For some reason, when I select “where ads showed,” they do not show me.
So if you're in a Display, YouTube or Demand Gen campaign, then you go to Insights and Reports on the left-hand side, When and Where Ads Showed, Where Ads Showed, and then you'll see your various placements.
In Performance Max though, this will be blank. Instead, you need to go to Insights and Reports, Report Editor, and choose the Performance Max Campaigns Placement Report.
You'll only be able to see your impressions for each placement, not full performance data, but I'm actually optimistic that Google will change this soon. Given that we now have Channel Performance Reporting in PMax, we now have Search Term Reporting in PMax, we have Asset Performance in PMax… Placement reporting just feels like it should fall in line with this new PMax transparency push. But for now, there is a dedicated, limited report where you can at least see those placements.
If you would like to exclude certain Display placements from PMax, you can't do it yet either at the campaign level, but you can add account level placement exclusions under Tools, Shared Library, Exclusion Lists, Placement Exclusion Lists. You can add YouTube channels, YouTube Videos, Websites, Apps or App categories here, and it will exclude them from all of your campaigns with Display-eligible inventory, including PMax.
Another benefit to using account-level exclusions is it also excludes these placements on the Search partner network, not just the Display network. And this is actually late breaking news. In fact, I had to come back in and edit this episode to add this: You can now see your Search partner placements.
As Lizzo would say, it's about damn time!
As with the Performance Max display placements report, you have to go to reports editor and then choose “Content suitability.” This will only show you impressions for the various search partner placements, but you can now see exactly where your search partner ads are showing. And newsflash: it's just as garbage as we thought.
For example, for one of my clients' search campaigns that's opted into the Search partner network, the top place they've served impressions is a website called GlassDoop.com. Not to be confused with GlassDoor.com, although that is definitely what the site wants you to think. I hate to send them the extra traffic, but if you want to see what a Search partner is, go to GlassDoop.com and have a good laugh with me.
Notably, YouTube is part of the Search Partner Network, and so you'll be able to see the specific YouTube channels as well as all the garbage websites you've served impressions on.
If you want to exclude any of these placements, you can just opt out of the Search partner network in your Search or Shopping campaign. Or if it's PMax and you don't have a choice, then you can do account-level placement exclusions.
Note that as of right now, Google says that this Search Partner Network placement reporting is only available for Search, Shopping, and App campaigns. I would imagine this would expand to PMax soon, but we'll have to wait and see.
Big shout out to Anthony Higman on LinkedIn for spotting this first and to Greg Kohler, AKA PPCGreg, who's the one that figured out where this report actually lives.
If you're still figuring out how to find your way around the Google Ads interface, whether you should choose display versus PMax versus shopping, how to set up and optimize these campaigns, you should look into my course, Inside Google Ads. I've got more than 100 tutorials where I show you in real time, in a real Google Ads account, how to set up, manage, and optimize your campaigns like a pro. You can learn more at learn.jyll.ca, that's J-Y-L-L dot C-A, or follow the link in the episode description.
Our second question today comes from Talco100 on TikTok and they say, how do you insert negative keywords for Display and Video campaigns?
I'm going to broaden this question a bit to ensure we actually understand the three content targeting options for inclusion before we get to how to exclude them.
Display and Video campaigns allow you to add content targeting, which means targeting ads based on specific placements, based on the topic of the content, or based on keywords that are related to the content. Placements, topics, keywords.
As I say right at the beginning of my book, “audience targeting means showing ads to certain types of people, whereas content targeting means showing ads in certain types of places.” Targeting the content itself rather than the person who's engaging with the content.
A placement might be NYTimes.com or YouTube.com, and then your ads would be eligible to show on that website. You can also have placements of YouTube channels or videos, like the AI Max for Search Campaigns Explained video by Jyll Saskin Gales, which would make your ads eligible to show to viewers of my specific video.
Topics might be “Alcohol-free beverages” or “gossip and tabloid news.” There's hundreds to choose from, and then your ads would be eligible to show on any piece of content that has to do with that topic.
Keywords might be “Google Ads” or “Family-friendly travel,” and then your ads would be eligible to show on any piece of content that's related to these keywords. Think like Broad Match, definitely not like Exact Match.
To exclude keywords or topics or placements, you go to the same place you would go to add them. Go to Audiences, Keywords, and Content, Content, and then scroll down to Exclusions.
You can add keyword exclusions at the campaign or ad group level for Display or Video campaigns. If you do so, Google's exact language is, “Keyword exclusions can prevent your ads from showing to people who search for or browse content related to those keywords.”
That implies that in addition to negating some content, there's also some kind of negative Custom Segment thing going on here, which is interesting because you can't actually add Custom Segments as exclusions.
If you feel like you need a brush up on the different kinds of Google Ads targeting available to you, check out my bestselling book, Inside Google Ads: Everything You Need to Know About Audience Targeting, available now on Amazon, Google Play Books, or Kobo.
Our final question today comes from CarolineAsiala5016 on YouTube and they say, is there anything redeemable about the Google Display Network? We're only getting spam leads, so after two weeks, I turned it off. If it's not good for conversions, is it still worth it for branding purposes?
My answer is no. I genuinely can't think of any redeeming features of the Display Network or Search Partners anymore. Do not include them in your Search campaigns. Do not include them in your Shopping campaigns. Do not include them in your Video or Demand Gen campaigns. You can't exclude them from PMax, but if you have proper conversion tracking and sufficient budget and the right bid strategy in place, you will probably see from your placement report that you're not investing much on Display anyway. If that doesn't tell you right there how garbage Display is, I don't know what else would.
I literally cannot remember the last time that I suggested launching a standalone Display campaign to a Google Ads coaching client. And in all the audits I do, I cannot remember the last time I saw a Display campaign that was actually driving good results. I rarely see them anymore, to be fair. And when I do see them, they are always performing poorly.
If you do want to use Google Ads for branding purposes, that's exactly what Video Reach campaigns were designed for. You could also run a Demand Gen campaign on a click-based bid strategy if you want to use image inventory. So in conclusion, no, there is nothing redeemable about the Google Display Network.
Today's Insider Challenge is this. How would you go about finding the right YouTube placements for a Video campaign?
The beauty of the Insider Challenge is there's no right or wrong answer, just an opportunity to stretch your brain on real life Google Ads problem solving.
Last Episode's Challenge, Episode 82, was this. Let's say you're talking to a client and they ask you, should I test AI Max or not? How would you answer that question?
As you might imagine, I get asked this question a lot on my Google Ads coaching calls. So I first like to determine whether or not they actually know what AI Max means before answering whether they should use it or not.
If I ask someone, “do you know what this is?” People usually say yes. Not because they're looking to lie to me, but it can be intimidating when someone who's an expert is like, well, do you know this?
So instead, I first try to figure out why they are asking me this question. And this applies to any feature, by the way. We're just using AI Max as an example. But, should I test PMax? Should I test video? Should I test a Custom Segment? Like, where is that question coming from? So I’ll say, why do you ask? Is this something you think is gonna work well for you? And through their answers, I can determine if they actually know what AI Max is or not.
If I figure out that they've been following the news and they know what it is, then we'll explore whether or not it might be the right fit. If they're already leveraging a lot of Search automation features and they have a pretty high Impression Share, yeah, let's try it. If they are not already leveraging a lot of automation features and or they have a lower budget, no, we probably shouldn't try it. And if they're already running PMax, I will definitely go there, check the Search Terms Report and see how it's doing, since that's the most analogous thing to what AI Max would probably do.
If I determine through my initial question that they actually don't really know what AI Max is, it's just something they've heard of or it sounds exciting, then I'm going to try to gently educate them before continuing on. I'll explain that AI Max is a bundle of three features, so let's explore one by one if these features sound appealing or not.
First is keywordless targeting. I might say, “this is even broader than Broad Match. How does that sound to you?”
Next is asset customization, letting Google create assets for you. “Is this something we're already doing in Google Ads or something we don't like?”
And then finally, final URL expansion, letting Google send traffic to any part of your website, not just your landing page. “Do we like this or not? “
I'll find at this point that often, even if the client seems excited about trying something new like AI Max, they actually don't want to expand their keyword set. They don't want Google to create assets for them, and they don't want to give Google permission to drive traffic to pages other than the landing page. So they're excited by the idea, not actually what it would do. This is a way to uncover that.
But if they're feeling adventurous, if they meet the requirements I said earlier, then absolutely I'll say, let's go ahead and test it. And if we do, I generally recommend turning this on within an existing campaign rather than starting a new one.
If you missed last episode, where I answered 9 of your burning questions about AI Max, you can find that wherever you're watching or listening to this one. It's Episode 82.
I'm Jyll Saskin Gales and I'll see you next time Inside Google Ads.