Target websites about relevant topics

To help you reach more potential customers, your ads will now show on content that matches any of the topics, placements, or Display/Video/Search keywords you target. For example, if you targeted “bikes” as a topic and “cycling” as a Display/Video/Search keyword, your ads will show on content that matches either.

You’ll also notice contextual targeting simplified into a single page in Google Ads, so you can manage all content targeting types (Topics, Placements, Display/Video keywords, and Exclusions) in a single view. The new page can be found in the “Content” section under Campaigns on the left-side navigation menu.

You can target topics of your choice to reach people interested in content related to your products and services. This article provides step-by-step instructions for setting up topic targeting.

For a general overview of this feature, review About topic targeting. You can use topic targeting in Display Network or Video campaigns.

Instructions

Note: The instructions below are part of the new design for the Google Ads user experience. To use the previous design, click the "Appearance" icon, and select Use previous design. If you're using the previous version of Google Ads, review the Quick reference map or use the Search bar in the top navigation panel of Google Ads to find the page you’re searching for.

To add topic targeting to an existing ad group, follow these steps:

1. In your Google Ads account, click the Campaigns icon .
2. Click the Audiences, keywords, and content drop down in the section menu.
3. Select Content.
4. Click the drop-down arrow next to “Show table”, then select the campaign you want to edit.
5. Click Edit content.
6. Click the drop-down arrow in the “Topics” editor.
7. Select the topics and subtopics you’d like to target.
8. Click Save.

Tips

• When you target a top-level topic, you also target all the related subtopics. However, we recommend adding the subtopics to your list for bidding and reporting control.
• Adding all the subtopics isn't the same as adding the top-level topic. There are pages that won't be targeted if you add only the subtopics to your ad group. You can avoid this by adding the top-level topic.
• You can combine multiple content targeting methods, and your ads will target any of the selected content in your ad group to help you reach a broader audience.