No targeting in Google Display & Video ad groups? Ads can soon show across Google Display Network

Google has announced that, beginning in January, ad groups in Google video and display campaigns that do not have any targeting set at that level will automatically be eligible to show ads on the Google Display Network.

Google has been sending advertisers a notice and pausing display and video campaigns that didn’t have targeting assigned to ad groups so that ads didn’t run without any targeting. As of January, that will no longer happen. After the change, if you have one or more ad groups without targeting in a video or display campaign, those ads will be eligible to run generally across the Google Display Network.

In other words, your ads will run without any targeting limitations at all apart from whatever location, device and language setting have been applied at the campaign level. If you don’t want your ads to run without additional targeting at the  ad group level, you should pause the ad group or add targeting.

About The Author

Ginny Marvin

As Third Door Media’s paid media reporter, Ginny Marvin writes about paid online marketing topics including paid search, paid social, display and retargeting for Search Engine Land and Marketing Land. With more than 15 years of marketing experience, Ginny has held both in-house and agency management positions. She provides search marketing and demand generation advice for ecommerce companies and can be found on Twitter as @ginnymarvin.