If you’re running a display remarketing campaign in Google Ads and you want to make sure that only your remarketing audience is being served those display ads, then be sure to turn off optimized targeting!
If optimized targeting is enabled, then Google will serve your ads to people who are similar to the audience that is being targeted.
However, if you are running a display remarketing campaign in Google Ads with optimized targeting turned on, then that means people outside of your remarketing list will be served your “remarketing” display ads.
This setting is turned on by default, but can only be configured in ad group settings.
If you would like to get a comprehensive list of other simple but necessary Google Ads optimizations, sign up to receive our Ultimate Google Ads Checklist.
Want More Google Ads Tips?
Click here to grab a copy of our Ultimate Google Ads Checklist.
Want Our Expert Help?
If you’re a small business owner seeking help with Google Ads, click here to get a custom Google Ads quote.
Do you have clients who need help with Google Ads? Learn more about our white label and referral partner programs.
Video Transcription
0:05
Hey this is Riley with Main Street ROI
0:08
and today I just wanted to quickly go
0:10
over one of the top mistakes that I see
0:12
people making with regard to display
0:15
campaigns and something called optimized
0:17
targeting
0:18
so optimized targeting is a setting
0:20
that’s on by default and what optimized
0:23
targeting does is it allows Google the
0:25
ability to show your ads to people
0:27
outside of the audience targeting that
0:30
you have set up already
0:32
and maybe find a test except when it
0:35
comes to a remarketing campaign so if
0:37
you are remarketing to people with a
0:39
display campaign and optimized targeting
0:42
is turned on then Google is showing your
0:44
ads to your remarketing audience and
0:47
people who are like that who it also
0:48
thinks will convert and that kind of
0:51
defeats the whole purpose of having a
0:52
remarketing campaign to just Target
0:54
those specific people if Google is going
0:56
to do that so I’m going to show you how
0:58
to turn that setting off so this is
1:00
actually an ad group level setting
1:03
so here I have the campaign selected so
1:06
I’m just I’m going to select the ad
1:07
group here and go to settings
1:11
and you have to click edit add group
1:13
targeting
1:16
which is going to take you to another
1:17
page and this is where you turn it off
1:20
so it’s
1:21
been turned off in this account it’s on
1:23
by default but um definitely recommend
1:26
turning that off for remarketing
1:27
campaigns specifically now if you did
1:30
want to see how this setting
1:31
compares to your actual targeting Google
1:34
will kind of show you generally
1:38
what that looks like so if you just
1:40
select the campaign again go to
1:42
audiences
1:43
audience segments
1:46
this is it right here so total expansion
1:48
and optimized targeting
1:50
and you know Google’s not going to tell
1:53
you exactly who it’s targeting but this
1:55
is it’ll kind of give you an idea about
1:57
how it’s performing versus the targeting
1:59
that you have set up and then you can
2:01
kind of determine you know if you want
2:03
to keep it or not so I hope this has
2:04
been helpful I hope you go out and
2:06
implement this and of course if you have
2:08
any questions please reach out
