It’s likely that most of you have heard about or have a few ideas about Optimized targeting On DV360 by now.
You can find all the details here if you haven’t already. We have added all the handy notes you need to get started with the new feature.
So, google which owns Dv360, has rolled out a new advanced audience targeting feature called optimized targeting.
Well, it looks like a promising new feature to overlook the lookalike concept. Where LAL or similar audience analyzed your audience in terms of who they are as a human. But, OT instead, intelligently analyzes whether or not they will or will not have a bond with your brand.
So less human touch and more machine learning!
A great aspect of this feature is that it is still free and is now dedicated to making your DV360 campaigns more effective and efficient.
Why this Change now?
The fact that Google and other giants are now focusing on privacy is a clear indicator that they are thinking beyond third-party cookies for these DSP’s.
This was brought in to retire the audience expansion feature currently in place for Display, Audio and video Campaigns on Dv360.
You may wonder was this not available for Youtube?
No, this was limited to most Campaign types expect Youtube. For youtube Campaign, we had a similar audience feature or some may say lookalike feature.
By this time, you must have this question, Weren’t audience expansion and similar audience the same?
The short answer is NO!
A big difference that I can think of is, you can use audience expansion for any type of audience like In-market, Affinity, First party etc.
But, a similar audience is exclusive to a first-party audience. Whenever you target first-party data, google automatically finds some similar audience for that first-party data.
Here are some additional differences between similar audiences and Audience expansion you should know
Audience expansion allowed DV360 advertisers to reach additional audiences who share interest profiles with the existing targeted audiences.
How Audience expansion reached additional users?
These features used Google’s machine learning intelligence to find new audiences who would likely take the desired action of a buyer’s KPI, even in cookieless environments. Even when the user didn’t provide consent.
OK, so is Optimized targeting a better option than Audience Expansion feature?
Which is better: Optimized targeting or Audience Expansion? Is there any difference?
The optimised targeting feature is still a relatively new one, so there is little evidence to support the claim that it is superior. There are, however, a few differences between them.
Optimized targeting VS Audience Expansion
Optimized targeting uses your Campaign performance metrics like clicks, conversion etc and complements them with an automatic bidding strategy to drive more sales and clicks.
-> It uses real-time data to find new audiences to convert using your manually targeted audience as starting point.
-> When analyzing a potential similarity between an audience and its targeted audience, audience expansion looks at users’ interest profiles. In contrast, OT is concerned with whether the potential audience is likely to generate a desired performance event, for example, a click or conversion.
-> Once the Optimized targeting has enough data, it will slowly start shifting the budget towards the optimized audience and lesser toward your manual audience.
-> Doesn’t have a slider bar element
Audience Expansion: Even audience expansion uses clicks or conversion data but not to the extent of Optimised targeting.
-> Audience expansion finds similar audiences that meet specified criteria, such as those with similar interests, within a given audience segment.
-> Have a slider element to use it in dv360.
What are the additional benefits of using Optimized targeting?
Benefits of Optimized Targeting
-> Expand to new audiences beyond your existing segments.
-> Improve your campaign’s performance by optimizing your key performance indicator (KPIs) while maintaining cost efficiency.
-> Discover new audiences who are more likely to convert to improve your campaign performance.
You may want to use manually selected audiences without optimized targeting to:
Target only existing customers using an existing audience segment from past campaigns. This lets you focus on marketing to previous customers.
Are there any considerations to keep in mind?
-> Optimized Targeting may result in fluctuating performance for CPA performance campaigns. However, performance will improve once the system has enough data about actions that drive conversions.
-> Ads will be served to users beyond your targeted audience with optimized targeting to improve campaign performance.
-> It will, however, not show ads to those audiences you have excluded, such as demographics and brand safety.
Your campaign may be served ads differently when it finds better-performing traffic through optimized targeting. When optimized targeting finds more traffic at the same ROI, traffic to your manually targeted audience list may decrease. By deselecting the feature, you can turn off optimized targeting.
Best practices:
-> Don’t panic as soon as you implement this feature. Wait for 10 to 14 days to see it drive results.
-> Feed more budget during the start of the Campaign.
-> The IVT emails dated 5/19 are now being received by us, but the report for 5/18 is still not been received, could you please check it once.
How to use Optimized targeting on DV360 Campaign?
For Display, video, and audio campaigns, let’s see how to use this feature:
If you’re using an Automatic bidding strategy and not a manual bidding strategy and even targeting audience lists for your display, video, and audio campaigns, you will have the option to use optimised targeting.
If you would like to update your bidding strategy and audience targeting, follow these steps:
-> Click on a line item to view its details.
-> Select Automated bidding under Bid Strategy.
-> Select Audience lists under Targeting.
For Audience lists:
For optimized targeting, choose from the following audience groups under Include:
-> First-party and third-party audiences
-> Google audiences
-> Combined audiences
-> Custom lists
Select which audiences you don’t want to target under Exclude (optional).
It is not possible to exclude the first-party audience list you have already targeted.
-> When you are finished, click Apply.
-> You can use optimized targeting once you have set up automated bidding and are positively targeting an audience list.
-> Make sure the Use Optimized targeting option is selected under Optimized targeting.
-> When you are finished, click Save.
How to enable Optimized Targeting on DV360 for YouTube & partner’s video action campaigns
If you use audience lists for targeting your ad groups and create new YouTube line items for your video action campaigns, optimized targeting is automatically enabled.
Once you edit a line item with audience list targeting, optimized targeting will automatically be enabled.
In case you are interested in opting back into optimized targeting after opting out initially:
-> Click on a line item to see its details.
-> Under Targeting, for ad groups targeting using Audience Lists:
-> Select Use optimized targeting under Optimized Targeting.
For YouTube video action campaigns, you can add the following targeting signals: audience segments, custom segments, and customer data segments.
If you’re using audience lists for targeting, optimized targeting is only available for YouTube video action line items.
Do let us know your thoughts in the comment.
