How Placements & Keywords Work Together – move to seperate Display Network section after ad formats and before bidding
Placements and keywords team up to determine where your ads will appear on the Display Network and how much you’ll pay for them. You can choose to show your ads based only your keyword list, using placements to adjust your bidding. Or, you can use a combination of placements and keywords to refine where your ads are eligible to show.
Keywords or placements for your campaigns
When you’re creating campaigns or ad groups for the Display Network you can use keywords, placements, topics, interest categories, remarketing, age, or gender to show your ads. Keep in mind that the choice is always yours. Plus, if you start to use keywords for your campaign or ad group, you can always add placements later, for example. Or, you could start to use keywords, add placements later, and then decide to stop using keywords entirely. Either way, you’re not locking yourself into a choice.
To access all Display Network features and manage a specific budget for your display advertising, you might want to create a “Display Network only – All features” campaign. This would limit your campaign’s exposure to just people browsing sites on the Display Network. You can also access all Display Network features when you create a “Search & Display Networks – All features” campaign. Learn more about campaign types.
Using placements
You might want to use placements for your campaign or ad group if you’d like to choose specific places for your ad to appear. This can help you promote your brand by having your ads appear on a certain website or a certain group of sites on the Display Network. Or, you might want to review all the possible placements yourself before selecting them.
Using keywords
If you’re most interested in having your ads appear next to relevant content, then using keywords for your campaigns or ad groups might be the right choice for you. For example, if you simply want your ad to appear on sites about tennis, it might be best to start with keywords.
Using keywords and placement to show your ads
When you add placements and keywords to an ad group to target your ads, you restrict your ads to specific sites and show them only when the content of a page is relevant to your keywords. AdWords will automatically find pages in the Display Network with content that matches your keywords, which is called contextual targeting. If a placement has multiple webpages, only pages that match your keywords can show your ads.
Using keywords to refine the targeting for your ads on placements is a good option when you’re targeting sites that have a wide variety of content, such as news sites and social networks. That way, your ads will be more likely to appear in relevant locations on those sites. Make sure to monitor your ad’s performance to check that you’re seeing the results you want.
Note
When you use placements and keywords together, the combination won’t affect where your ads appear on the Search Network, which only uses keywords to target your ads.
Example
Let’s say that for your campaign you create an ad group with managed placements A, B, and C, and the keyword red roses.
Your ad will appear on placements A, B, and C only if their content is related to red roses. If AdWords determines that matches for red roses appear only on A and B, your ad won’t appear on placement C, even though you’ve selected it. Because placement C doesn’t have any content about red roses, it’s not a contextual match for your keyword.
Now, suppose placement A is a website about flowers, with 100 different pages: five about red roses, and 95 about other flower varieties. Because contextual targeting happens down to the page level, AdWords might identify only those five pages about red roses as a good match for your keyword. Your ad won’t appear on the other 95 pages of A if those pages aren’t a good match for your keywords, even though you’ve targeted the entire website. Learn more about targeting settings on the Display Network.
How ads that target placements and keywords compete
Ad position
Placement-targeted ads and keyword-targeted ads compete to appear on pages on the Display Network based on their Ad Rank. Ad Rank for placement-targeted or keyword-targeted ads, as well as all other ads targeted to the Display Network, is determined depending on whether the campaign uses cost-per-click (CPC) or cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM) bidding. Here’s how your ads compete based on the bidding they’re using:
- An ad unit can show one or more text ads or one display ad depending on the Ad Rank and auction results.
- Text ads that are using CPC bidding — regardless of whether they’re keyword-targeted or placement-targeted text ads — compete with each other to appear on an ad unit that can contain one or more text ads.
- Text ads that are using CPM bidding — regardless of whether they’re keyword-targeted or placement-targeted text ads — won’t appear on an ad unit with other text ads.
- Display ads — regardless of whether they’re keyword-targeted or placement-targeted display ads using CPC bidding or CPM bidding — compete with each other to appear on an entire display ad unit. Your display ads won’t share an ad unit with other ads.
Destination URLs
For Display Network campaigns, you can add a destination URL for a particular managed placement and keyword. If an impression that’s served has multiple destination URLs, AdWords will use the URL of the most specific targeting method.
Monitoring your performance data
You can see your performance data, including impressions, for your placement-targeted and keyword-targeted ads.
Impressions for placements you’ve targeted
When your ad appears on a placement you’ve chosen, the impression will be reported both as a placement impression and a keyword impression.
You can see your data for placements and keywords by selecting the Display Network tab. Keep in mind that you can see your performance data for campaigns that target the Search and Display Networks or the Display Network only.
Here’s how to find your placement statistics:
- Click the Placements tab,
- Next, click the Managed placements link and you’ll see a table with your performance data, including impressions.
Example
Let’s say your ad group has three keywords — roses, tulips, and sunflowers — and you have chosen www.example.com as a placement. If AdWords contextual targeting decides that www.example.com is a match for your keywords and places your ad on that website, it will be reported both as a keyword impression and a placement impression. That’s because you have included www.example.com as a placement in this ad group.
Impressions for placements you haven’t targeted
When keywords in your ad group trigger your ad to show on a placement that you didn’t target, then the impression will be reported both as a keyword impression and placement impression.
You can see your data for placements and keywords by selecting the Display Network tab. Keep in mind that you can see your performance data for campaigns that target search and the Display Network, the Search and Display Networks, or the Display Network only.
Here’s how to find your automatic placement statistics:
- Click the Placements tab,
- Next, click the Automatic placements link and you’ll see a table with your performance data, including impressions.
To see your keyword impressions:
- Click the Display Keywords tab,
- You’ll see a table with your performance data, including impressions.
Choosing Keywords for Display Network Campaigns
Choosing keywords for a Display Network campaign is like playing matchmaker for your friend: You want to pick keywords, or potential mates, that best fit your campaign, or picky friend. For example, if your friend likes to hike, you might pair her with someone who enjoys the outdoors.
Here are three things you should do when choosing keywords for your Display Network campaigns:
- Create ad groups for your products or services so AdWords can display ads related to them.
- Choose keywords that your customers would use to describe your products or services and keywords that are related to each other.
- Get ad group and keyword ideas or see potential placements using the Contextual Targeting Tool.
Create ad groups
Before you start to choose keywords for your Display Network campaigns, make sure that the ad groups for each of your campaigns are organized by the products or services that you offer. It’s best to start with keywords that describe the products or services that you’re advertising. Then, you can create ads related to those keywords, which will show to customers when they’re on websites related to your products or services. You can keep your account better organized by grouping your keywords by your products or services.
Example
Let’s say you’re building a campaign for your bakery. When you set up your campaign, you should separate your ad groups into the different types of products that you sell.
Here are examples of poorly structured and effectively structured ad groups to get a better idea of how to organize your ad groups:
| Poorly structured ad group | Effectively |
| structured ad | |
| group | |
| Ad group: Bakery | Ad group: Cookies |
| Keywords | Keywords |
| chocolate chip cookies oatmeal cookies snickerdoodles chewy | chocolate chip |
| brownies brownies with nuts dark chocolate brownies red velvet | cookies oatmeal |
| cupcakes vanilla cupcakes chocolate cupcakes | cookies |
| snickerdoodles | |
| Ad group: Brownies | |
| Keywords | |
| chewy brownies | |
| brownies with nuts | |
| dark chocolate | |
| brownies | |
| Ad group: Cupcakes | |
| Keywords | |
| red velvet cupcakes | |
| vanilla cupcakes | |
| chocolate cupcakes |
Tip
Add more keywords that are similar to those that are performing well for you. Your ad group’s keyword list helps us show your ads on relevant websites that your customers visit. Follow these guidelines to create a high-quality keyword list:
- Choose keywords related to your product or service.
- Create a set of five to 20 keywords that relate closely to one another and to the ads in that ad group. Keywords of two or three words (phrases) tend to work most effectively.
- Select keywords that are related to each other. For example, if you sell flowers, you might want to add “roses” and “chocolates” to your keyword list. That way, your keywords can show your ads to customers who could be interested in buying a dozen roses and box of chocolates.
- Select keywords related to the websites your customers see.
- If you have a strong and well-recognized brand, include branded keywords.
Example
Ad group: brownies
Keywords: chocolate brownies, dark chocolate brownies, chewy brownies, dessert recipes, brownie recipes
Google employs technology that scans the content and web address of a webpage to determine its central theme. Next, they will use your keywords and topic selections, plus your language and location targeting, and other settings to match the themes to your ads. Sometimes, they might show ads when keywords match the content of pages a person has recently browsed.
Tip
- Try excluding keywords to make sure your ads don’t appear on irrelevant websites.
- Refine your keyword list by adding or removing keywords.
Get ad group and keyword ideas or see potential placements
You can use the Contextual Targeting Tool to get themed ad group and keyword ideas that you might not think of when you build your campaigns. This can help you generate additional clicks and conversions. You can also use the Contextual Targeting Tool to see potential webpages where your ad can appear based on your keywords.
When you enter words or phrases in the Contextual Targeting Tool, it gives you a set of keyword ideas related to your terms, and groups the keywords into themed ad groups. Then you can see potential placements for the keywords in each of those ad groups.
Here’s how to use the Contextual Targeting Tool:
- Sign in to your AdWords account,
- Click Tools and Analysis, and select Contextual Targeting Tool,
- Enter words or phrases that describe your product (for example, “chocolate brownies”). The tool shows a list of keywords grouped into thematically relevant ad groups,
- Click the Expand button to see more related groups of keywords. Or click the View Predicted Placements button to see a list of potential webpages where your ad could appear based on your keywords.
Tip
- Once AdWords has enough historical data for those placements, they will show you a bid suggestion for your ad.
- Once you review your list of potential placements, try entering different keywords to see other potential placements for new keywords.
- Exclude potential placements that might not be relevant to your ads.
You can create new ad groups with the related keyword ideas directly from AdWords or from AdWords Editor.
Create an ad group in AdWords:
- Select the suggested ad groups and click the Add to campaign button,
- Select a campaign and click Create ad groups to add the ad groups to your campaign.
Note
Your new ad groups will be paused until you create ads and activate them.
Create an ad group using AdWords Editor
First, download the AdWords Editor, then follow these instructions:
- Select suggested ad groups and click the Export to AdWords Editor button.
- Enter a campaign name and then click Export to download the suggested ad groups as a CSV file.
- Import the file into AdWords Editor.
- Post your changes in your AdWords account.
- Set daily budget and ad creatives, and make sure you target the Display Network only.
Improve Keyword Targeted Display Network Campaigns
Now that you’re running a Display Network campaign, it’s time to evaluate your keywords and improve the poor-performing ones. It’s best to think about your keyword performance in relation to your advertising goals. That way, you can make changes to your keywords based on whether you’d like to increase traffic to your website or increase conversions, such as sales.
Increase traffic to your website
If your main advertising goal is to increase the number of people who visit your website, you’ll want to follow the tips below.
1. Add more generic keywords
Try adding more general keywords to your campaign if you’d like your ad to be eligible to appear for a large number of websites. For example, if you own a retail store, you might want to choose a general keyword like “shoes” instead of a more specific keyword like “black leather heels.”
2. Add different keywords
Try adding new keywords that are unique terms, ideas, or concepts to improve traffic to your ad. For example, instead of adding the keyword “shoe,” try adding the keyword “sneaker.” These different, unique keywords can help you match your ad to additional pages on websites, which might help you accrue more impressions.
3. Increase your bids for well-performing keywords
Increase your cost-per-click (CPC) bids for those keywords that are performing well to help you be more competitive. Keep in mind that if you’d like to set a bid at the keyword level, there should be no Display Network bid set for the ad group.
4. Use keyword insertion
Try using keyword insertion to dynamically update your ad text to include one of your keywords that triggered your ad. Keyword insertion can make your ads more relevant to customers, helping to increase your clickthrough rate (CTR).
Limit your costs on keywords that don’t lead to conversions
For some keywords, you might see that people are clicking your ad but aren’t buying your product, for example. In that case, you’ll want to make changes to your keywords to help improve your sales and conversions.
1. Add more specific keywords
Try reaching customers more effectively with specific keywords that directly relate to your product or service. For example, if you own a large retail store, you might want to choose a specific keyword like “leather boots” instead of a more generic keyword like “shoe.” It’s important to remember that you might not be able to reach as many people as you’d like with more specific keywords.
2. Decrease your bids on poor-performing keywords
You might have certain keywords that aren’t performing as well as others and you’d like to limit the amount you spend on those keywords. You can decrease your cost-per-click (CPC) bids for those keywords so you’re spending more of your budget on keywords that are performing well. Keep in mind that if you’d like to set a bid at the keyword level, there should be no Display Network bid set for the ad group.
3. Pause poor-performing keywords
Let’s say you decreased your cost-per-click (CPC) bids for poor-performing keywords, but you’d still like to improve your campaign’s performance. Try pausing or removing those keywords to prevent them from performing poorly in the future.
4. Prevent your ad from showing for terms that aren’t relevant to your product or service
Try excluding certain keywords from your campaign to prevent your ad from showing on certain websites that aren’t relevant to your product or service. That way, you can avoid paying for clicks that aren’t likely to lead to conversions. For example, if you run a shoe store, you might want to exclude keywords like “used” and “second hand” to prevent your ad from showing on websites that sell used shoes. Keep in mind that if you exclude too many keywords, your ads might reach fewer customers.
5. Exclude poor-performing websites
See how your ads are performing on specific placements on the Display Network by viewing your placement performance data. You might see that your ads are showing on placements that your customers don’t visit or aren’t appropriate for your ads. Then, you can exclude those placements from your campaign.
6. Enable Conversion Optimizer
Try using Conversion Optimizer, an AdWords feature that uses your AdWords Conversion Tracking data to get more conversions at a lower cost. (Note that your campaign must be eligible for the feature). Conversion Optimizer can help you avoid unprofitable clicks and get you as many profitable clicks as possible.
7. Implement keyword destination URLs
Drive traffic to your site’s page that’s directly related to a keyword by implementing destination URLs at the keyword level. If you’re using keyword-level destination URLs in your search campaign, you might want to do the same for the Display Network. Find out how to edit your destination URL.
Tip
- On the Display Network, all keywords are considered broad match only. This means that you don’t need to include plurals, misspellings, and other variants of your keywords.
- Try using the Contextual Targeting Tool to get keyword ideas for your Display Network campaigns.