Optimised targeting may reduce or stop serving traffic on your signals if it finds better-performing traffic elsewhere.
In this article, you'll learn how to use and review performance for optimised targeting in Display and video campaigns.
Before you begin
Brand safety
Optimised targeting respects your existing brand safety settings (such as content exclusions). You don’t need to make additional changes to your brand safety settings when using optimised targeting.
Bidding strategies
- If you're focused on generating site traffic, consider using optimised targeting with Maximise conversions and using site visits as your conversion type.
- If you're focused on conversions, consider using Maximise conversions or Target CPA with optimised targeting. Using these bidding strategies is recommended for optimised targeting because they use your conversion data to get you the most value for your campaign.
Campaign performance
Optimised targeting needs time to learn and find audience segments that are more likely to convert.
- For new campaigns, wait until the campaign has at least 50 conversions or has been active at least two weeks before evaluating performance.
- For existing campaigns, wait a minimum of two weeks before evaluating performance.
Instructions
Change optimised targeting settings
Note: Optimised targeting is only available for Demand Gen, video action campaigns (VAC) and display campaigns. Optimised targeting is always turned on for Performance Max campaigns, and brand campaigns use audience expansion.
- In your Google Ads account, click the Campaigns icon
.
- Click the Campaigns drop-down in the section menu.
- Click Ad groups.
- In the filter bar, select the campaign where the ad group belongs to.
- Then, select the ad group that you'd like to adjust targeting for.
- Click the Settings tab.
- You can also click the gear icon
beside the selected ad group in the table to open the Settings panel.
- You can also click the gear icon
- Expand the 'Optimised targeting' section.
- Select the tick box to turn optimised targeting on or off.
- Click Save.
Review performance for campaigns that use optimised targeting
- In your Google Ads account, click the Campaigns icon
- Click the Audiences, keywords and content drop-down in the section menu.
- Click Audiences.
- From the 'Audience segments' or 'Demographics' statistics table, click Show table to expand, then scroll down until you find a row labelled 'Total: Expansion and optimised targeting'.
When reviewing your performance, bear in mind that optimised targeting extends your reach to people who otherwise wouldn't have viewed your ads. The conversions that you get through optimised targeting are additional conversions that you wouldn't otherwise have received.
Your initial average cost per action (CPA) may fluctuate. Over time, optimised targeting will learn which targeting works best for you and optimise your reach at a more consistent average CPA to drive the most possible conversions.
If your ad groups have different kinds of targeting, viewing the ad group performance will allow you to compare clicks, impressions and conversions for each ad group.
