See potential placements for Google Display Network campaigns

Since the inception of the Google Display Network, contextual targeting has helped you to reach users effectively. This type of targeting allows you to show your ads next to related web content that users visit across millions of sites on the Display Network.

Today, we’re announcing an AdWords feature that provides you with example sites in the Display Network where your ads may appear when using contextual targeting. The example sites are based on the keyword list you provide when creating your campaign, and are available for campaigns that are solely running on the Display Network. Starting this week, the feature will be available to a limited set of advertisers, and will become more broadly available in the coming weeks.

Since contextual targeting happens in real-time across millions of sites in the Google Display Network, with this feature, you get insight into the types of sites where your ads can appear. Seeing example sites before your campaign runs can help you to refine your keyword lists to ensure optimal targeting. Along with example sites where your ads can appear, you can also see a suggested bid for your ad group. The example placements we provide are meant as a guide to help you get a sense of where your ads can appear. They’re not an accurate representation of actual placements, which can vary with the dynamics of the ad auction once your ads are showing.

While this feature provides a deeper level of transparency before your ads run, as always, once your campaigns begins to run, you can access site- and URL-level reporting that shows the specific places in the GDN where your ads actually appeared.

To see potential placements when creating your campaign, your can click the "See potential placements" button when selecting keywords for display-only ad groups in the new ad group creation interface. Please visit our Help Center to learn more.

Posted by Gordon Zhu, Inside AdWords crew