Google’s Display Automatic Targeting
By crystalmarketing | May 26th, 2021
By crystalmarketing | May 26th, 2021
Online advertising revenue reached almost $140 billion in 2020 and with good reason.
Consumers are clearly influenced by the digital ads they see on a daily basis. In 2020 alone, consumers flocked online more than ever because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
In the past year, digital ad spending worldwide reached $333 billion.
Driving much of the spending is Display Automatic Targeting, one of the biggest trends in marketing.
Here’s a look at what Display Automatic Targeting is and why it’s beneficial for your business.
Display Automatic Targeting is a feature for advertisers recently introduced by on several platforms, including Google and Amazon.
It’s an automated option within settings of display campaigns that allows you to show ads to an audience that’s “similar” to the one you specified that you wanted to target.
Data is taken from your historical performance, looks at your conversion history, and uses your cost per acquisition as an estimated guideline for spending. The feature is automatically enabled for all display campaigns.
There are two options: conservative and aggressive. The “conservative” option allows your platform to conservatively find your potential customers based on past data and does not go over a current cost per customer.
The “aggressive” option targets a higher number of people with more liberal settings. It does so at a cost per customer that may exceed what you normally experience.
If you select automatic targeting, a certain website platform is doing the work for you, as opposed to manual targeting.
With automatic targeting for your campaign, you select what you’re advertising, choose a budget and the timeframe for the campaign. Then the platform goes to work, choosing targeted keywords that match (or are similar to) your product or the product category.
If you’re using manual targeting for your campaign, you find the keywords that match your product and its description. Your advertisements are then presented only when your keywords exactly match the other users.
There are several pros and cons for marketers that come with Display Automatic Targeting.
Automatic targeting is generally regarded as having the ability to optimize targeting as your campaign runs, with your ads increasingly showing up where they’re likely to get the most attention — and give you the most business.
On the flip side you will find that you are giving a lot (if not too much) control over your campaigns to Google.
What we and others have found is that Google attempts to stay within your allocated CPC, but the automated feature seems to have little regard for the daily budget.
Display Automatic targeting is also extremely beneficial if you have a lot on your plate. However, if you are concerned about going over your budget and your results being impacted you may want to think twice.
The feature has been turned on automatically, so keep a close eye on your display campaign performance and if you see poor results you can disable the targeting option by following the below:
If you have any further questions please reach out to the team at Crystal Marketing who have over 10 years’ experience in the field and run a SEM agency in Sydney, Australia.