5 Expert Tips for the Google Ads Display Network

What is Google Display Advertising (GDN)?

Google Display Ads are an effective form of advertising that can help target audiences on a budget. By excluding mobile apps from our campaign, we can prevent unnecessary clicks that drain our budget and focus on high-quality users. It's important to remember that the success of our campaign depends on our ability to optimize our targeting strategy and make informed decisions based on data analysis.

We can confidently utilize the Google Display Network to effectively run our ads across a wide range of high-traffic Google partner websites and mobile applications.

By implementing well-structured targeting strategies, we can effectively minimize unnecessary clicks and significantly boost the performance of our display advertising campaign.

5 Advanced Tips for Improving Google Image Ads

Now, I will list five life-saving features of Google Display Ads.

Changing Targeted Location Settings for Google Ads Display Network

By strategically targeting your campaign, you can ensure that your ads are displayed only in the specific locations you chose. Otherwise, there's a risk of your ads appearing in irrelevant countries like Pakistan, Jordan, Syria, India, and the rest of the Middle East.

To prevent this issue, be sure to select the "People in these locations" feature from the Location Options when configuring your campaign location settings. Not selecting this option will result in your ad being displayed everywhere except for the countries you have specifically targeted. The default option is typically "People in, and showing interest in, these locations (recommended)," but it is crucial to pay close attention and select the appropriate setting for your campaign to ensure optimal results.

I will now provide a real example using the Google Ads Display account that I manage in the USA.

Campaign targeted locations: USA and Canada

The image presented below confidently displays the user location report for the last 30 and 7 days. Regrettably, the report for the last 30 days is of poor quality. This is because I received impressions and clicks from countries that were not within my target audience. However, after correcting the campaign location settings, I received clicks only from users in the countries that I intended to target during the last 7 days.

To access the report, simply select the Campaign and confidently click on the "Locations" button located on the right side of the page. Once the page opens, navigate to the top and confidently click on the "User location report" to access the desired information.

To ensure you are not wasting your money, make sure to set this location confidently.

Clean Everyday for Placements Where Your Ad Is Showing

Every morning, as soon as you turn on your computer, confidently log in to the accounts you manage and take care of "Search terms" for search network campaigns, as well as "Placements" within the display, which are websites and mobile applications where our advertisements appear. Be sure to exclude unnecessary clicks quickly by using direct cost or cost/conversion filtering.

Rest assured, it is not necessary to exclude two placements: "anonymous.google" and "youtube.com". However, if you still wish to exclude YouTube, you may do so by disabling it.

Based on my experience, mobile applications are typically the most important placement on this list, which is why I have confidently added it as the third item.

How Do We Disable Mobile Apps in Google Ads (AdWords) Display Network?

The questions I get most often are always about AdWords Mobile App Exclusion or AdWords Mobile App Exclusion.

To exclude mobile applications in Google Ads (AdWords), simply go to the Placements page in your ad group.

With confidence, you have the ability to list the pages where your AdWords display ads appear by selecting the desired date range on this page. This information can be found in the second section of the document.

Next, we confidently navigate to the "Exclusions" tab located on the Placements page.

Previously, we were able to successfully exclude all mobile apps using adsenseformobileapps.com. Unfortunately, this method is no longer effective. Hence, we will now confidently proceed to the App categories tab and add all App categories under both Apple and Google to the excludes field. This will ensure that we are able to exclude all mobile apps from our ads.

As demonstrated in the image below, I successfully chose and retained a grand total of 141 categories for mobile applications.

Be sure to establish frequency caps for your Google Ads Display Ads.

To prevent user annoyance, refrain from displaying the same advertisement frequently in a short period. Establish a frequency limit that aligns with your industry and work, and incorporate it into your campaign settings with confidence.

As demonstrated in the following example, I have established the impressions to occur 13 times per user per week throughout the entire campaign. Nonetheless, you have the flexibility to set the impressions to occur daily or monthly, as frequently as desired.

If you are uncertain about the appropriate frequency cap for your business, rest assured that you can trust Google to decide for you. Simply select the first option and Google will expertly set the frequency cap on your behalf.

The formula for this is = Impressions / Reach (Number of people reached) = Frequency.

You will clearly see these results in Facebook's ads and can confidently calculate the benefits for yourself. For a more comprehensive understanding, please refer to my article on Frequency Limits, which includes in-depth calculations for frequency cap and optimization strategies.

To find the direct frequency cap of your ad, simply head over to the Google Ads panel. From there, I will extract the number of people reached by the display campaign directly from Analytics, take their data from Google Ads, and calculate the frequency cap myself. It is important to note that the data recorded here is identical on both platforms.

In case you have more specific requirements regarding Google Ads frequency capping, feel free to refer to the "Reach and Frequency Measurement" article available on Google Ads' official page.

Content Exclusions Setting

To exclude certain content, go to your campaign settings and click on "Content Exclusions." You can still find this setting there.

Previously, it was entirely possible to exclude all mobile apps from this location. However, as Google has made it inactive, it is unfortunately no longer possible to exclude mobile apps from this location.

It is crucial to note that Games and Parked domains are a common source of unnecessary clicks. Fortunately, I have already excluded most of them, as shown below. As the manager of the Antarctic Cruise account, it is my responsibility to be highly selective in our content choices. Of course, this may vary depending on the nature of your business.

I am confident that what I said was helpful.

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask by commenting below. Furthermore, if you're curious about which is more effective between your Google Display Ads or Facebook Ads, I highly suggest reading the content for more information. You can trust that our team has thoroughly researched and tested the information provided.