Contextual targeting

To provide a comprehensive and consolidated view of your content targeting and make content targeting management and optimisation simpler, you’ll see the following improvements in Google Ads:

All types of content targeting can now be found under 'Content' in the side navigation:

  • 'Topics', 'Placements', 'Display/Video keywords' and 'Exclusions' for all types of content targeting are now categorised under the 'Content' tab in the side navigation menu. For 'Exclusions', click the drop-down arrow to the right of the term 'Exclusions' to select exclusions for topics, placements or Display/Video keywords.

Soon, you’ll see further improvements:

  • 'Topics', 'Placements', 'Display/Video keywords' will be consolidated into a single 'Content' page and report. Exclusions will also be consolidated into a single report in the same page ('Content').
  • Your ads will target any of your selected content in your ad group. For example, if you targeted 'bikes' as a topic and 'cycling' as a Display/Video keyword, your ads will show on content that matches either.

Until your account is migrated, we recommend that you only use one content targeting method (topics, placements OR Display/Video keywords) per ad group. Before the upcoming changes, combining methods can limit campaign performance.

For video campaigns that drive conversions only: To help you find more conversion opportunities, you’ll no longer be able to add content targeting to new and existing video conversion campaigns in the coming months. From early 2023, all existing content targeting settings will be automatically removed from video campaigns that drive conversions. To manually remove content targeting from existing conversion campaigns, go to your ad group settings. Learn more about optimising your campaign for conversions

The process that matches ads to relevant sites in the Display Network using your keywords or topics, among other factors.

  • Here's how it works: Google's system analyses the content of each webpage to determine its central theme, which is then matched to your ad using your keywords or topic selections, your language and location targeting, a visitor's recent browsing history and other factors.
  • Google Ads uses contextual targeting when an ad group has keywords or topics and its campaign is set to show ads on the Display Network.

Learn more About contextual targeting

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