Category targeting

Use category targeting to target your ads based on market verticals, and the content of webpages.

When you target a given category, you will also automatically target all of the subcategories underneath the parent category. For example, if you target "/Autos & Vehicles", you will also automatically target "/Autos & Vehicles/Personal Aircraft", "/Autos & Vehicles/Scooters & Mopeds", and so on.

How does category targeting compare to other types of content targeting?

Categories are more general than contextual keywords. For example, a category might be "Auto," but you could use contextual keywords to target content that refers to particular models of cars.

Considerations

  • Web: With web inventory, category targeting only works with inventory that passes a URL in the impression's bid request; If an impression doesn't include a URL in its bid request, line items that target categories won't bid on it.
  • Latency: Any recent events or news may take several days to be targetable using category targeting.

Keyword and category targeting is based on a page’s content. Pages are frequently crawled and reclassified to reflect any content changes using technology that tracks dynamicity and traffic, ensuring targeting matches content with high confidence. Highest performance is expected on high-impression inventory with a clear set of themes or topics that are consistent over time. 

What categories are available?

The following is a list of the broad types of categories that are targetable:

  • /Arts & Entertainment
  • /Autos & Vehicles
  • /Beauty & Fitness
  • /Books & Literature
  • /Business & Industrial
  • /Computers & Electronics
  • /Finance
  • /Food & Drink
  • /Games
  • /Health
  • /Hobbies & Leisure
  • /Home & Garden
  • /Internet & Telecom
  • /Jobs & Education
  • /Law & Government
  • /News
  • /Online Communities
  • /People & Society
  • /Pets & Animals
  • /Real Estate
  • /Reference
  • /Science
  • /Shopping
  • /Sports
  • /Travel
  • /World Localities 

Each of the above categories contains many targetable subcategories. Some content subcategories can't be excluded from targeting and aren't available for selection.

To get the most up-to-date list of targetable categories in Display & Video 360, create an Inventory Availability report and group by "Category".

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