Welcome to the Display Advertising exam refresher guide - the perfect way to prepare for your display advertising exam. The exam includes basic and advanced concepts, including best practices for creating, managing, measuring, and optimizing display ad campaigns across the Display Network. This handy resource is a shortened version of the full Display Advertising exam study guide, which is available on our Partners Help Center. You’ll also find additional information and plenty of helpful links throughout.
In the exam, you can expect 100 questions and a 120 minute time limit. It’s necessary to get 80% to pass. And you’ll need to pass both AdWords Fundamentals and Display Advertising exams (or one of the other AdWords exams like Video, Search, Shopping or Mobile Advertising) to become AdWords certified.
Here’s what we’ll cover in this refresher guide:
Module 1 About the Google Display Network
1.1 About the Google Display Network
1.2 Where ads might appear in the Display Network
1.3 About contextual targeting
1.4 About the Display Network ad auction
1.5 About “Search Network with Display Select”
1.6 Create an effective mobile site
Module 2 Setting up a Display Network campaign
2.1 Create an AdWords campaign to reach the right customers
2.2 Structuring your AdWords account
2.3 Using the AdWords Ad gallery
2.4 Bidding features on the Display Network
2.5 Choose a bid for your Display Network campaign
2.6 Bid on viewable impressions using viewable CPM
2.7 About Enhanced cost-per-click (ECPC)
2.8 About bid adjustments
2.9 About flexible bid strategies
2.10 About Conversion Optimizer
2.11 Enhance your ad with extensions
2.12 About mobile app installs campaigns
2.13 Create dynamic display ads
2.14 Lightbox ads
2.15 Create a Lightbox ad
2.16 Editorial & professional requirements
2.17 Fix a disapproved ad
Module 3 Showing your ads on the Display Network
3.1 Targeting settings on the Display Network
3.2 About managed placements
3.3 Target websites about specific topics
3.4 Add negative keywords to your campaign
3.5 How language targeting works
3.6 Using custom ad scheduling
3.7 Advanced mobile and tablet options in “Display Network only” campaigns
3.8 Using Display Planner to get targeting ideas and traffic estimates
3.9 The Display Network tab
Module 4 Reaching your audience on the Display Network
4.1 Reach people interested in your products or services
4.2 Reach people similar to your existing audiences
4.3 Reach people of specific demographics
4.4 Use remarketing to reach past website visitors and app users
4.5 Use dynamic remarketing to show ads tailored to your site visitors
4.6 Create a feed for your dynamic display ads
Module 5 Measuring and optimizing performance on the Display Network
5.1 Drive sales and generate leads
5.2 Increase brand awareness
5.3 Measuring sales and conversions
5.4 Evaluate ad performance on the Display Network
5.5 Account, campaign, and ad group performance
5.6 Explore your data on the Campaigns tab
5.7 Optimize Display Network ads and campaigns
5.8 Tips for creating effective display ads
5.9 About display targeting optimization
5.10 Understanding conversion tracking
Module 1 About the Google Display Network
1.1 About the Google Display Network
The Display Network is a collection of partner websites and specific Google websites - including Google Finance, Gmail, Blogger, and YouTube - that show AdWords ads. This network also includes mobile sites and apps.
When showing ads on the Display Network, you can:
● Reach new customers
● Select where your ads appear
● Engage users with appealing ad formats
Matching your ad to websites in the Display Network
The Display Network lets you put your message in front of potential customers at the right place and at the right time in several ways.
Reach users by keywords and topics: Using contextual targeting, AdWords finds the best places for your ad across the Google Display Network, based on your keywords
Choose specific websites or pages: By adding managed placements, you can show your ad on specific webpages, online videos, games, RSS feeds and mobile websites and apps that you have selected
Find users who are already interested in what you have to offer: You can reach people who visited your website previously, by creating a remarketing campaign
Ad types on the Display Network
Here's a list of ad formats you can use to attract customers on the Display Network:
Text ads
Image ads
Rich media ads
Video ads
Measuring the effectiveness of ads on the Display Network
To make sure that you're achieving your business goals with the Display Network, you can also review detailed reports.
Reports: See exactly on what web pages your ads are running, which ads deliver the most clicks and which websites give you the most sales for the lowest cost.
Value: If our data shows that a click from a Google Network page is less likely to turn into actionable business results – such as online sales, registrations, phone calls, or newsletter signups – we may automatically reduce the bid for that website, charging you less for the same click.
1.2 Where ads might appear in the Display Network
When you advertise on the Google Display Network, your ads can appear across a large collection of websites, mobile apps, and video content. Here are some examples:
Google AdSense publisher sites, including AdSense for Domains and AdSense for Errors
DoubleClick Ad Exchange publisher sites
Google sites such as Google Finance, Blogger, Google Maps, and YouTube (Google search not included)
With over 2 million Display Network sites that reach over 90% of Internet users worldwide (Source: Comscore), there are a lot of opportunities to reach customers. However, to target your customers effectively, choose campaign settings and add targeting methods to your ad groups that specify the conditions for when your ads can show on the Display Network.
1.3 About contextual targeting
Contextual targeting is one of a few different methods that you can use to get your ads on sites and web pages that are part of Google’s Display Network. This method of targeting uses the keywords or topics you’ve chosen to match your ads to relevant sites.
You choose keywords and topics - Keywords are individual words, whereas a topic is a web page’s concepts or central theme, rather than its individual terms.
Our system analyzes web pages that make up the Display Network - Our system analyzes the content of each Display Network web page or URL, considering factors such as the following:
Text
Language
Link structure
Page structure
Your ad gets placed
By keyword
When your keyword matches a web page’s concepts or its central theme, your ad is eligible to show on that web page (also known as an automatic placement).
By topic
When your topic matches a web page’s central theme, your ad is eligible to
show on that web page.
1.4 About the Display Network ad auction
The Display Network ad auction shares many similarities with the AdWords auction. Your ads are ranked among other advertisers' ads based on Ad Rank, which is based on your Max cost-per-click (CPC) bid and Quality Score. This means that if your Quality Score is sufficiently better than the score of the advertiser immediately below you, you could rank higher than that advertiser, even if this person's bid is higher than yours.
Just like in the AdWords auction, your Max CPC bid isn't necessarily how much you'll pay per click. The price you pay -- Actual CPC -- depends on the outcome of the auction, and it’s often less than your Max CPC bid.
This is how the Display Network ad auction differs from the AdWords auction:
You'll pay what's required to rank higher than the next best ad position only for incremental clicks you get from being in the current position.
You'll pay the price you would have for the next best ad position for the rest of the clicks.
1.5 About Search Network with Display Select
The "Search Network with Display Select" campaign type helps you reach people as they use Google search or visit sites across the web.
How it works
You manage your "Search Network with Display Select" campaigns the same way that you'd manage a "Search Network only" campaign: set a budget, choose relevant keywords, create ads, and set bids. Your ads can appear when people search for terms on Google search and search partner sites that match your keywords. They can also appear on relevant pages across the web on the Google Display Network. However, your ads are shown selectively on the Display Network and bidding is automated, helping you reach people who are most likely to be interested in the products and services you’re advertising.
1.6 Create an effective mobile site
When designing your site, keep in mind mobile best practices, like simple navigation and highlighting local options of your business. If you'd like to reach customers with WAP phones, you'll also need to use mobile-friendly code to create your site.
Reaching mobile customers using a HTML website
Regardless of whether you’ve a mobile website, AdWords will let you show text ads to customers using Google Search on a high-end mobile device such as an iPhone or Android phone. These "smartphones" have a full Internet browser (like a desktop computer), so a customer who clicks your text ad from the search results page can visit your standard website.
Best practices for designing a mobile site
When creating a mobile website, you'll want to keep in mind a few strategies that best take advantage of the small size of mobile screens and the behavior of mobile users.
Keep it quick
Reduce large blocks of text and use bullet points
Compress images for faster site loading
Make it easy to buy something or contact you
Reduce steps needed to complete a transaction
Keep forms short and make data entry easy
Use click-to-call functionality for all phone numbers
Simplify navigation
Minimize scrolling and keep it vertical
Use a clear hierarchy in menus and avoid rollovers
Use clear back and home buttons
Use seven links or less per page of navigation
Help people find and get to your local sites
Have your address or store locator on the landing page
Include maps and directions. Use GPS when possible
Allow customers to check stock at nearby stores
Make sure your mobile website is being indexed for web search
Learn more about creating an effective mobile site»
Module 2 Setting up a Display Network campaign
2.1 Create an AdWords campaign to reach the right customers
Before you create your ad campaign, take a few moments to get familiar with these essential AdWords terms and concepts:
Campaign
Ad group
Keywords
Budget
Bidding
Understanding your campaign settings
The campaign settings you select will apply to all ads within the same campaign. The type of campaign you choose determines which settings are available to you.
The settings cover three basic areas related to your ad:
How much you’ll pay by setting your budget and bid (you can always adjust them later)
What, besides text and a link, to include in your ad using ad extensions
Where you want your ads to appear using settings for geographic locations, languages and placement on the web (called Networks)
About ad groups
An ad group is made up of a set of keywords, ads and bids. Each ad campaign consists of one or more ad groups. Ad groups allow you to group your keywords with the most relevant ads. This helps to ensure that you show the most relevant ad when someone searches for a particular word or phrase.
Understand how your AdWords account is structured
AdWords is organized into three layers: account, campaigns and ad groups.
Your account is associated with a unique email address, password and billing information
Your ad campaign has its own budget and settings that determine where your ads appear
Your ad group contains a set of similar ads and the words and phrases, known as keywords, that you want to trigger your ads to display
2.2 Structuring your AdWords account
Good account organization helps you to make changes quickly, target your ads effectively and, ultimately, reach more of your advertising goals.
Top three tips for structuring your account
Organize your campaign to mirror your website
Create separate campaigns for multi-region advertising
Use AdWords Editor to manage your campaigns
2.3 Using the AdWords Ad gallery
The Ad gallery, formerly known as the display ad builder, is an adcreation tool that offers various display ad formats in different categories, such as image ads, dynamic ads, engagement ads and video ads, in any of your campaigns on the Google Display Network.
Here are some benefits of using the Ad gallery:
Differentiated products and services: Use images of your products, colors that match your brand, and your logo to encourage people who see your display ads to click on them.
More effective campaigns: Use display ads to drive higher click-through rates and overall conversion volume on the Google Display Network.
No-cost ad templates: Test various messages, color schemes and images, at no cost.
Customizable ad styles: Create a custom ad in as many sizes and variations as you like, and you'll only pay for ad clicks or impressions on sites across Google's Display Network.
Industry-standard ad templates: Create ads with a clear call-toaction button and 2 to 4 lines of prominently displayed text.
2.4 Bidding features on the Display Network
When you advertise on the Display Network, you can set your bids in different ways in your campaign.
Default bids: If you don’t have a custom bid for when your ad appears in a placement that matches your targeting, AdWords will use your ad group default bid.
Custom bids: If you've enabled custom bids for a single targeting method, for example, topics, AdWords will use that bid when your ads show on websites related to that topic.
Bid adjustments: To gain more control over when and where your ad is shown, you can set bid adjustments at the campaign and ad group level.
Custom URLs
If you're using automated bidding, you can specify unique landing page URLs for a targeting method in your ad group. You can set custom URLs on only one targeting method within each ad group.
How bidding options interact
When your ad is eligible to show on the Display Network, AdWords will first check for a custom bid. If you’ve a relevant custom bid set for a targeting method, this’ll be used in the ad auction. If you don’t have a relevant custom bid set, AdWords looks for the default bid. The ad group bid is used as the default bid.
Bid adjustments are applied after the initial bid is set.
2.5 Choose a bid for your Display Network campaign
Bid types on the Google Display Network help you get the most value from your campaigns by setting just the right price for your ads. Here are the types of bids that you can use:
For "Display Network only" campaigns, you can set ad group default bids, custom bids or bid adjustments.
For "Search Network with Display Select" campaigns, we’ll automatically adjust your bids on the Display Network to try to mirror your search performance.
Bidding on Display Network campaigns
Bidding on the Display Network helps you show ads to potential customers in the right place and at the right time.
Clickthrough rates (CTRs) are often lower on the Display Network because it can be harder to get a reader's attention. That's why Display Network bidding exists - to let you set a Maximum CPC bid for clicks that happen just on the Display Network. You get more control over your costs and you can make sure that your bids fit the value that you get from your ads.
Choosing your first bid
To find the right bid on the Display Network, you can make a starting bid, see how your ads perform, and then edit it. If you don't set specific bids for your targeting, AdWords will use your ad group default bid.
We recommend that you continue to monitor impressions and clicks, but it’s most helpful wait a couple of weeks before making too many changes.
2.6 Bid on viewable impressions using viewable CPM
If you'd like to pay only for ad impressions measured as viewable, you can with viewable cost-per-thousand impressions (viewable CPM). An ad is counted as "viewable" when 50 per cent of your ad shows on screen for one second or longer for display ads, and two seconds or longer for video ads.
You can select Viewable CPM as a bid strategy when you choose CPM bidding for your "Display Network only" campaign.
The viewable CPM bid strategy isn’t available for campaigns that include ads targeting mobile apps. These can include app install ads, app engagement ads or ads targeting mobile apps through the "Ads in mobile apps" campaign type.
Why use it?
Pay only for impressions measured as viewable
Your bids are optimized to favour ad slots that are more likely to become viewable
If you're interested in maximizing ad views, rather than clicks, this bidding strategy can help you achieve this goal better than other kinds of bid strategies.
2.7 About enhanced cost-per-click (ECPC)
ECPC looks for ad auctions that are more likely to lead to sales for you, and then raises your Max CPC bid up to 30% to compete harder for those clicks. It'll also lower your Max. CPC by any amount (even more than 30%) if it determines that a conversion isn't likely, so you'll pay less for clicks that convert less. This helps you to get more value from your ad budget. ECPC factors in real-time details such as device, browser, location and time of day to adjust your bids during each ad auction.
How does ECPC know which auctions are promising?
The AdWords system looks for patterns of clicks and conversions and compares them to your past results. If certain search or keyword combinations lead to more sales, for instance, then it’ll know. That's why you need conversion tracking turned on to use ECPC – it’s where the data comes from.
How is ECPC different from Conversion Optimizer?
ECPC
Works with all your campaign settings and Max. CPC bids
Can raise bids by up to 30%
Works with third-party bidding systems
Conversion Optimizer
Is based on a target cost-per-acquisition (CPA) that you set
Has full freedom to set your cost-per-click (CPC) bid for eachauction
May not work with some API-based bid management solutions
2.9 About flexible bid strategies
Flexible bid strategies give you automated bidding exactly when, where and how you want it – across multiple campaigns, or within a single part of a campaign.
Types of flexible bid strategies
Maximize clicks automatically sets bids to try to get you as many clicks as possible within a target spend amount that you choose. Goal: Increase site visits and clicks on low-traffic terms while keeping within a certain spend.
Target search page location automatically adjusts bids to help to increase the chances that your ads appear at the top of the page or on the first page of search results. Goal: Increase visibility on the first page of Google search results or in the top positions.
Target outranking share automatically sets bids to help you outrank another domain’s ads in search results. Goal: Get more visibility than other domains in search results.
Target cost per acquisition (CPA) automatically sets bids to help you increase conversions while reaching your average cost-per-acquisition goal. Goal: Get more conversions with your target CPA.
Enhanced cost per click (ECPC) automatically adjusts your manual bid up or down based on each click’s likelihood of resulting in a conversion. Goal: Increase conversions while staying in control of your keyword bids.
Target return on ad spend (ROAS) automatically sets your bids to maximize your conversion value, while trying to reach an average return on ad spend. Note: Your actual ROAS may be above or below the target that you set. Goal: Meet a target return on ad spend (ROAS) when you value each conversion differently.
2.10 About Conversion Optimizer
The goal of Conversion Optimizer is to get you the most conversions given your cost-per-acquisition (CPA) goals. Rather than focusing on clicks (CPC) or impressions (CPM), Conversion Optimizer focuses on maximizing conversions.
How Conversion Optimizer works
Using historical information about your campaign, Conversion Optimizer automatically finds the optimal equivalent CPC bid for your ad each time that it's eligible to appear. You still pay per click, but you no longer need to adjust your bids manually to reach your conversion goals.
About recommended target CPAs
Conversion Optimizer provides you with a recommended target CPA to help get you started. As with CPC bidding, the target CPA that you set is your primary control over how many conversions you'll get and how much you'll pay for them. You can raise your target CPA if you want to increase traffic and conversions. If your average CPA is higher than you prefer, then you can lower it, which will probably decrease both average CPA and the number of conversions.
Requirements for Conversion Optimizer
Your campaign uses AdWords Conversion Tracking or cross-account conversion tracking, or is importing data from Google Analytics
The campaign should usually have received at least 15 conversions in the last 30 days
Increase your campaign's conversions
Here are some ideas for increasing the number of conversions in your campaign:
Increase your budget
Increase your CPC bids for the ad groups in campaigns not hitting your budget
Move the conversion tracking code on your website
Combine your campaign with another campaign for a related product that has a similar conversion rate
Opt in to the Google Display Network
Add more relevant keywords to your ad groups
Change your ads or landing page to try to increase your clickthrough rate (CTR) or conversion rate
Tips for Conversion Optimizer success
Start with the recommended target CPA and adjust as required
Use the Target CPA Simulator
We recommend not changing your target CPA more than once every few weeks
Use Conversion Optimizer with existing campaigns
Don't remove your conversion tracking code from your website or move it to a different location while running Conversion Optimizer
Compare your CPA and conversion rate before and after using Conversion Optimizer to gauge its impact on your campaign
If you're consistently hitting your budget, increase it to allow more visibility for your ads
Changes in traffic or conversion rate
Changes in traffic
If you notice a drop in traffic (clicks and conversions) after turning on Conversion Optimizer, then there could be a few things going on:
Your target CPA might be too low
Instead of conversions, you may be looking at clicks or impressions
Conversion tracking is disabled
Your ad group is missing a target CPA
Changes in conversion rate
It's possible to see a drop in conversion rate when you start using Conversion Optimizer. This change may occur because you're observing an average of the conversion rate across all clicks.
2.11 Enhance your ad with extensions
See how a business like Main Street Flowers uses sitelinks, call, and location
Ad extensions create more reasons to click your ad
Ad extensions are a type of ad format that show extra information (“extending” from your text ads) about your business. Some can be added manually and others are automated.
Ad extensions tend to improve your ad’s visibility and clickthrough rate (CTR).
How ad extensions work
AdWords shows one or more extensions with your ad when it calculates that the extension (or combination of extensions) will improve your campaign performance, and when your Ad Rank is high enough for it to appear.
What ad extensions cost
There's no cost to add extensions to your campaign, but you're charged as usual for clicks on your ad, as well as for certain interactions that extensions provide. The cost of these clicks are set in the same way as headline clicks: the most that you'll pay is what's minimally required to keep your extensions and ad position.
Where extensions can be shown
Ad extensions appear with ads on the Search network, and depending on the extension might also appear with ads on the Display Network.
Types of ad extensions
Manual extensions
App extensions - Show a link below your ad text that sends people to the app store or begins downloading your app
Call extensions - Let people click a button to give you a phone call
Location Extensions - Help people nearby to find your nearest shop front or give you a call
Review extensions - Showcase positive, third-party reviews from reputable sources
Sitelinks extensions - Add links to help people to find what they’re looking for
Callout extensions - Add descriptive text to your ad to help people learn more about what you’ve to offer
Automated extensions
Consumer ratings - Show off what customers appreciate with highquality survey data
Previous visits - Show people if they've clicked through to your website from Google Search results before
Social extensions - Show how many Google+ followers you have
Dynamic structured snippets - Dynamic structured snippets show additional landing page details automatically with your ad on Google search
Seller ratings - Show your online business ratings with your ad
Dynamic sitelink extensions - Connect potential customers to relevant pages on your website more easily
2.12 About mobile app installs campaigns
Promote your app with campaigns to drive downloads
With "Mobile app installs" campaigns on the Search and Display Networks, and "TrueView for mobile app promotion" on YouTube, you can create custom app install ads that run exclusively on phones and tablets. AdWords helps create your app install ads based on your app icon and reviews, and these ads take people straight to the app store to download your app.
Connecting your AdWords account to your Google Play Developer account makes this even easier: you can sync user lists and targeting, and track installs seamlessly.
Differences between campaign types
Mobile app installs: Control your entire campaign. Promote your app on a single network to drive app installs.
Bid strategies: CPC, CPV (YouTube only)
Where ads can show: Display Network, Search Network (including Google Play Search for Android apps), YouTube
Ad formats: App installs ads, Image app installs ads, Video app installs ads, TrueView app promotion ads (YouTube)
Universal app campaigns: Simplify your app install campaign management. Promote your Android app across multiple networks within a single campaign.
Bid strategy: Target CPA
Where ads can show: Google Play, Google search, YouTube and Display Network publisher websites and mobile apps.
Ad formats: Drive users to your app's listing in the Google Play Store. Provide lines of text to generate ads and we do the rest.
Where app install ads can appear
When you create your campaign, choose the network type that best matches how you'd like to promote your app:
The Display Network - to reach people while they're using other apps that are similar to yours with app install ads.
The Search Network - to show app install ads to people while they're looking for an app like yours on the Google search app, or Google Play (Android only).
On YouTube - to show video ads to reach people who are interested in content related to your app.
Choose your app
When you create a “Mobile app installs” campaign, we’ll ask you to select the app you want to promote right away, so we can help customize bidding, targeting and ad format options for your app. There are a few options for selecting your app:
Add an app from the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store
Enter your own app ID or package name
Select an app that you’ve advertised before from the drop-down menu
Display Network targeting options
Here is some of the more precise targeting just for mobile app installs:
Installed app categories: Show ads to people who’ve downloaded other apps in a category that you’re interested in targeting
New mobile devices: Show ads to people who’ve recently activated phones and could be interested in adding new apps
Mobile app categories: Show ads in apps within certain categories
App install ad formats
Here are the available ad formats on the Display Network:
App install ads
Image app install ads
Video app install ads
On YouTube
Choose your app
For “TrueView for mobile app promotion” campaigns, we’ll ask you to enter the URL of the app you want to promote and your YouTube video, so we can send people to the appropriate app store to download your app straight from your ad. You'll enter the app URL from your app store while you're creating your campaign.
Set bids for video views
On YouTube, you set cost-per-view (CPV) bids. You’ll set bids for your “TrueView for mobile app promotion” campaign when you set up targeting. Any interaction with your video (other than skipping) is counted as a view. This can be when someone watches at least 30 seconds of the video or clicks on the "install" button or link, whichever they do first.
Video ads for your app
In your “TrueView for mobile app promotion” campaign, you create your ad right after you set your bids and budget. These ads are linked to the app store page for your app, so you can get people from click to download even quicker.
Targeting on YouTube
“TrueView for mobile app promotion” campaigns allow you to reach people on YouTube who view content relevant to your app, or who have interests related to your app. When you’re creating your campaign, you can target specific video topics after you set your CPV bids.
Accounting for conversion delays
Conversion numbers may take several days to show up on reporting due to delayed interactions between a person’s device, Google, and any third party tracking services you might use. When reviewing your conversion reports, note that the previous three days of conversion data may not be complete yet.
2.13 Create dynamic display ads
Create dynamic display ads to showcase products or services from your feed. You'll have the opportunity to create these ads when you're setting up your dynamic remarketing campaign in your account’s Ad gallery. When you create dynamic ads, you’ll specify whether they should use a particular ad layout or your preferred layouts.
With preferred layouts, you’ll choose the layouts and features that you want. Some features of layouts include:
Multiple product carousels.
Cropping your images to fit the ads.
Star ratings.
Customize the text in your dynamic ads
While there are numerous ad layouts available, you may want to customize your dynamic ads further. If you’re using an education, flights, travel or custom feed, you can customize how the attributes from your feed are arranged in your dynamic ads.
2.14 Lightbox ads
What are Lightbox Ads?
Lightbox ads are an opportunity for you to reach, delight and engage with new audiences through rich, interactive formats. Depending on your goal, you can choose the billing model that reaches your objective. The rules for image ads also generally apply to Lightbox ads.
Technical Requirements
There are two types of Lightbox ads: Ready and Custom.
Ready Lightbox ads: Ready Lightbox ads are a pre-designed set of templates available in AdWords. Use your existing brand assets, including videos, images, product feed and maps, to easily create rich brand experiences.
Custom Lightbox ads : Custom Lightbox ads are third-party served ads that are fully developed by creative agencies, according to AdWords specs.
Family status
Google assigns a "family status" to all ads. Lightbox ads and the content that they point to must be "family safe". For more information see the policy on adult-oriented content.
Ready Lightbox ads and Studio Layouts
Ready Ad gallery units can be built within minutes and will be approved within 24 hours of ad creation
For Studio Layouts, it can take 3-4 working days to build and approve the ads
2.15 Create a Lightbox ad
The Lightbox family are a suite of interactive ad formats that help you reach, captivate and delight your potential customers. Interactions in these ads can range from hovering the mouse pointer over an ad to expand the unit, to playing a video, to tapping for content. The ad itself can be a large canvas that you use to promote your brand's message, whether the canvas is a video carousel, interactive game or catalogue.
Here are some of the benefits of using Lightbox ads:
Connect with the right customers: You can target your ads using all the different Display Network targeting methods available. And you only pay when there's a qualified engagement with your ads
Captivate your audiences: By using online resources that you might already have, such as videos or catalogues, you can create compelling ads using one of our rich formats
How Lightbox ads work
Lightbox ads are available in standard Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) sizes. After customers have interacted with these ads, they load rich media either within the ad, or in an expanded canvas. This type of interaction reduces
accidental engagements, providing a better experience for customers and better value for advertisers.
Lightbox ad formats
Two Lightbox ad formats are available in AdWords:
Lightbox ad with multiple videos
Lightbox ad with video and image gallery
2.16 Editorial and Professional Requirements
Our policy
In order to provide a quality user experience, Google requires that all promotions meet high professional and editorial standards.
Examples of what's not allowed
Here are some examples of content that we don't allow:
Unclear promotion
The promotion is incomprehensible, inaccurate or does not make sense
Unclear relevance
Promotions that aren’t relevant to the landing page
Unsupported superlative or competitive claims
Promotions that contain claims where that claim isn’t supported by thirdparty verification on the landing page
Usefulness
Promotions or content that are unnecessarily difficult or frustrating to navigate
Style requirements
Promotions that don’t use the features of the ad unit for their intended purpose, or that are inconsistent with the presentation style of the Google Search results
Spelling and grammar
Promotions that don’t use commonly accepted spelling and grammar
Punctuation, symbols, capitalization, spacing or repetition that aren’t used correctly or for their intended purpose
2.17 Fix a disapproved ad
If any of your ads get disapproved, it unfortunately means that the ad isn't able to run at the moment. To get your ad up and running, find out which ad was disapproved and then edit it so that it meets our advertising policies.
How to fix a disapproved ad
Here's how to get your ads up and running:
Step 1: Find out why your ad was disapproved.
Step 2: Make changes to your ad or website.
Step 3: Wait for your ad to be reviewed.
Module 3 Showing your ads on the Display Network
3.1 Targeting settings on the Display Network
On the Google Display Network you can reach a wide range of customers, choose which sites or pages your ads appear on, and engage people with a variety of appealing ad formats.
To advertise on the Display Network, use any type of “Display Network only” or “Search Network with Display Select” campaign.
The basics, get your ads on to the Display Network
Targeting methods like keywords and affinity audiences get your ads on to the Display Network.
You sell sporting goods. For your soccer campaign, you want your ads to show on pages related to soccer.
When you add targeting methods like keywords or affinity audiences, you’re telling AdWords where your ads can show or who can see your ads as they browse the Display Network. You add targeting to the ad groups in your Display Network campaigns.
Have more control over where your ads show, choose targeting settings
Targeting settings like “Target and bid” and “Bid only” also determine the reach of your ads. Think of them as controls that do the following:
“Target and bid”
Restricts your ads to showing for the targeting method you’ve selected, like keywords
Allows you to set bids for individual targeting, like $2.00 for buy soccer balls
“Bid only”
Doesn’t restrict your ads to showing for the targeting method you’ve selected
Allows you to set bids for individual targeting, like $2.00 for Soccer Fans
Important note: For small and medium businesses, it's better to set fewer targeting methods to “Target and bid” in an ad group. Otherwise you may be narrowing the reach of your ads so they rarely show.
Try advanced targeting combinations based on your goals
Direct sales campaigns
If your goal is to sell products and reach a specific type of audience, you might want to add a few targeting methods to your ad group that are set to “Target and bid.” Then your ads can show only when the specific targeting methods you've selected match.
Brand campaigns
If your goal is to reach as many people as possible, you might not want to add too many targeting methods to your ad group. You may still choose, however, to add multiple targeting methods so you can set bids on a particular one without significantly limiting your reach.
3.2 About managed placements
Placements are locations on the Google Display Network where your ads can appear. They can be a website or a specific page on a site, a mobile app, video content or even an individual ad unit.
What makes a placement a "managed placement" is that you’ve chosen to target a website, mobile app or ad unit specifically.
If you choose popular sites or are just getting started with advertising on the Display Network, you may need higher bids to get impressions. You can always adjust your bids later.
Why add managed placements
Show your ads only on specific placements that you choose
Show your ads on placements where your customers spend time
Get more (or less) traffic from placements by setting individual placement bids
Learn more about managed placements»
3.3 Target websites about specific topics
Just as your business caters for certain customers, your customers may be interested in certain topics. Topic targeting lets you place your AdWords ads on website pages about those topics, whether it's agriculture, music or something else entirely.
Topic targeting allows your ads to be eligible to appear on any pages on the Display Network that have content related to your selected topics.
Why target topics
Generate additional traffic
Reach a broad audience quickly
You have a flexible or unrestricted campaign budget
You'd like to ramp up your ad delivery quickly
Your cost-per-acquisition goal is moderately flexible
You'd like to prevent your ads from appearing on irrelevant or underperforming pages
How much topic targeting costs
Pricing for targeting by topic works the same way as pricing for other placement-targeted ads. You select the maximum price that you're willing to pay each time that your ad appears, and the AdWords system will show your ad on pages on the Google Network with content about that topic where your bid can win a position. A popular topic may have thousands or even tens of thousands of pages where your ad could appear.
3.4 Add negative keywords to your campaign
With negative keywords, you can:
Prevent your ad from showing to people searching for or visiting websites about things that you don't offer
Show your ads to people who are more likely to click on them
Reduce costs by excluding keywords where you might be spending money but not getting a return
When you select negative keywords, you'll want to choose search terms that are similar to your keywords, but signal that people are looking for a different product.
AdWords lets you do the following with negative keywords in order to improve your campaigns:
Add negative keywords (“Search Network only”, "Search Network with Display Select" or “Search & Display Networks” campaigns)
Edit, remove or download negative keywords ("Search Network only", "Search Network with Display Select" or "Search & Display Networks" campaigns)
Exclude keywords ("Display Network only" campaigns)
Get negative keyword ideas
3.5 How language targeting works
If you try to communicate with others who don't speak the same language, then you might find it tough to get your message across. Similarly with AdWords, you want your ads to appear for customers who can understand them.
Choosing your target language
Language targeting allows you to choose the language of the sites that you'd like your ads to appear on. We'll show your ads to customers who use Google products (such as Search or Gmail) or visit sites on the Google Display Network (GDN) in that same language. Keep in mind that AdWords doesn't translate ads or keywords.
How we detect languages
Each Google domain has a default language. For example, Google.com defaults to English and Google.fr defaults to French.
On the Google Display Network, AdWords may look at the language of the pages that someone is viewing or has recently viewed to determine which ads to show. This means that we may detect the language from either pages that the person had viewed in the past, or the page that they are currently viewing.
Organize campaigns by language
Language targeting settings are set at the campaign level, so if you're targeting more than one language, we recommend that you create separate campaigns for each one. This helps ensure that the ad you've written in one language also appears on a site that's written in the same language.
3.6 Using custom ad scheduling
You may want your ad to show whenever a customer searches online or just on certain days. For campaigns with “All features” enabled, you can use custom ad scheduling to:
Specify certain hours and/or days of the week when you want your ads to show
Set bid adjustments to increase or decrease your bids for specific days and times
By default, your AdWords campaigns are set to "Show ads all days and hours".
Not seeing ad scheduling?
Custom ad scheduling is available for campaigns with “All features” enabled. If your campaign sub-type is set to “Standard”, you won’t see ad scheduling as an option in your campaign’s Settings tab. You may need to change your campaign sub-type to “All features”.
Adjusting for time zone differences
It’s important that you adjust your ad schedule to account for any difference in your target customers' time zone.
Set an ad schedule bid adjustment
You can set bid adjustments for specific days and times in the Ad schedule subtab in your campaign settings. If you also choose to set bid adjustments for mobile devices and locations, all of your adjustments will be multiplied together to determine the resulting bid adjustment. By setting bid adjustments, your spending on individual clicks may vary, but your overall daily budget won't change.
3.7 Advanced mobile and tablet options in “Display Network only” campaigns
You can target specific operating systems, device models, as well as operators and wireless networks with your “Display Network only” campaigns. Advanced mobile and tablet options aren’t available for other campaign types.
Bear in mind, some "Display Network only" campaigns are already optimized for mobile - mobile app promotion ads will only show on mobile devices. However, you can still set bid adjustments for tablets, mobile phones and desktop computers under "Settings" in the "Devices" section.
3.8 Using Display Planner to get targeting ideas and traffic estimates
Display Planner is a free AdWords tool that you can use to plan your Display Network ad campaigns. You’ll just need a few basic details to get started, like your customers’ interests or your landing page. Display Planner then generates targeting ideas along with impression estimates and historical costs to guide your plan.
Why use Display Planner
Ideas to help you get started. Ideas for keywords, placements, and all other Display Network targeting methods help you plan your campaign.
Impression estimates and historical costs to guide your decisions. Estimates show how ideas may perform based on past results. Historical costs point you to ideas within your budget and help you set bids for ideas you adopt.
A plan you can share. One-click download makes it easy to export your plan and share it with clients and colleagues.
3.9 The Display Network tab
The Display Network tab:
Is only available for campaigns that run ads on the Google Display Network
Can be used to determine where your ads show on the Google Display Network
Types of targeting methods and exclusions
Contextual targeting: Match relevant website content
Keywords: Target or exclude by a page’s key phrases
Topics: Target or exclude by a page or website’s central theme
Audiences: Reach specific groups of people
Interest categories: Target or exclude by interests or affinities
Remarketing: Target or exclude people who have visited your website before
Demographics: Target or exclude by gender or age group, such as Males, 18-24
Placement targeting: Select or exclude specific websites and apps
Placements: Target websites, mobile apps, or video, such as example. com, with managed placement