Opting Google Ads search campaigns into the Google Display Network is generally never recommended, despite appearing in the “Recommendations” tab frequently.

This can be configured in the campaign settings menu. If you would still like to test serving search ads on the Google Display Network, then you can review performance by adding the “Network (with search partners)” segment at the campaign level.

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Video Transcription

0:06
Hey this is Riley with Main Street ROI
0:09
and today I just wanted to quickly talk
0:11
about one of the biggest mistakes I see
0:13
in Google ads and it has to do with
0:15
opting search campaigns into the Display
0:18
Network
0:19
so you’ve probably seen this
0:20
recommendation in the recommendations
0:22
tab you may have even applied it
0:24
because Google says oh you’ll get more
0:27
Impressions and you know it’ll be great
0:29
the problem is that search campaigns are
0:32
are very focused on getting in front of
0:34
people right when they’re ready to make
0:36
a purchase
0:37
so people are looking for something
0:38
they’re typing something into Google and
0:40
you want to show up as a solution to
0:42
whatever problem it is that they’re
0:44
looking you know typing in
0:46
as opposed to display which is a lot
0:48
more about visibility
0:51
and you know maybe someone’s looking up
0:52
a recipe or they’re on a Blog and
0:55
there’s banner ads on the side you know
0:56
they’re not actively looking for a
0:58
solution to something so there’s uh it’s
1:01
a different strategy
1:03
and while it is true that you’ll get
1:06
more Impressions the question is are
1:08
they good impressions
1:09
so this is configured at the campaign
1:13
settings level so if I selected a
1:15
campaign here
1:16
go to settings
1:20
and networks this is where you turn it
1:23
on and off I have never ever seen
1:26
Display Network for search campaigns
1:28
perform well
1:30
and I I just as a general rule do not
1:32
recommend it this uh search Partners
1:35
Network
1:37
that’s okay I wouldn’t do it right away
1:39
when launching a campaign this is
1:41
something I would maybe test out for
1:43
mature accounts
1:45
primarily we want to serve search ads on
1:48
just the Google
1:49
search Network rather than search
1:50
Partners but you can test that but
1:54
pretty much never for Display Network so
1:56
this is where you turn that off
1:58
and something to note too about about
2:01
display ads
2:03
for uh search campaigns is that what
2:06
Google is going to try to do is pull
2:07
images from your account to serve Those
2:10
ads so if you have image extensions in
2:13
the account then it can pull from those
2:15
if you have another display campaign in
2:17
the account then it can pull from those
2:19
when serving search ads on the display
2:21
network but if you have neither uh
2:25
image extensions or a display campaign
2:28
then Google is just going to serve
2:31
search add text in like a gray box and
2:35
it’s just not a good impression it
2:36
doesn’t create a quality ad experience
2:39
for people
2:40
and you’ll see that when you know people
2:43
really don’t convert so
2:45
yeah I would definitely uncheck that
2:48
if you were curious though you wanted to
2:50
to test it out
2:52
uh you can actually see that the
2:54
performance same with uh search partner
2:56
so what you do is go to the campaign
2:57
level
2:58
segment
3:00
by Network
3:01
and uh if Display Network was was
3:04
checked then we would see that
3:07
in a row here but I hope this has been
3:10
useful I hope you go out and implement
3:11
this and of course if you have any
3:13
questions please reach out to us