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5 Ways To Avoid Wasted Spend on The Google Display Network


The Google Display Network (GDN) is a great way to reach potential customers with banner ads targeting those in your area, on websites similar to yours, have searched for your products or services in the past, and even retarget users who have browsed your website specifically.  With over 2 million Display Network sites that reach over 90% of Internet users worldwide, there are tons of opportunities to reach customers. With such vast reach on the Internet, it’s also easy to reach the wrong users at the wrong time and waste valuable marketing dollars.

Avoid wasted spend and low quality clicks by following these tips!

1. Stay specific! Layer ad group targeting.

You may have explored targeting options  and decided to reach users with keyword or contextual targeting, meaning your ads would show to users on GDN websites with your specific keywords.  Add another layer, for example demographic targeting. Your ads will only show on those websites containing your keywords for users in specific age groups or genders. See the drastic decrease in weekly available impressions just by adding in some demographic targeting!

 

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2. Exclude mobile apps.

If you are a seasoned display advertiser you probably noticed a bulk of your GDN traffic comes from mobile apps, including games.  Many of these are probably accidental clicks. Some may come from kids using their parents’ phones or tablets. Avoid the tedious task of  excluding these one by one and add “adsenseformobileapps.com” as an excluded placement at campaign level to avoid wasting budget on these low quality clicks.

 

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3. Exclude irrelevant topics.

If you notice a trend of irrelevant websites in your placements reports, see if you can exclude those topics. There are quite a few dating sites on the GDN which tend to have low click-through-rates for many of our product and service based clients. If someone is looking for a date on a Friday night, chances are they are pretty preoccupied and aren’t going to click through to your site to learn more about your business. Don’t take it personal! Exclude “Dating & Personals” in campaign or ad group targeting to avoid showing on these types of sites moving forward.

 

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4. Don’t bombard people with your ads! Implement frequency capping.

In campaign settings, add frequency capping to avoid showing ads multiple times to the same users. This can help prevent repeat clicks from the same users.  We recommend starting with 4-6 impressions/day. This can especially be helpful for remarketing. You want to stay on top of mind for potential customers without being bothersome, of course!

5. Utilize managed placements.

Once you have some data and can see which sites are drawing valuable clicks and conversions, build a Managed Placements campaign, targeting only those specific websites.  You can add to this campaign as you identity high quality websites.

It’s important to look at the big picture of your display campaign to identify what’s working and what’s not.  At Ferocious Media, we recommend running display and remarketing campaigns as a supplement to search. Need help with your digital marketing strategy? Contact a Ferocious Media Media Consultant today!