Campaign targeting elements are the building blocks of your campaign. When you define the campaign’s targeting strategy, you choose which of these elements to apply in order to strike the balance between scale, efficiency, and performance.

This guide outlines each of the elements that are listed when you create a new campaign or edit an existing campaign in the Campaigns app. The ones you’ll apply and customize will differ by campaign depending on aspects such as your ad’s creative format, your target audience, and your marketing objectives, for example. Review each required and optional campaign targeting element, and apply the settings that make the most sense for your campaign.

Campaign targeting rules help ensure that every marketing dollar goes toward the strategies that are the most likely to reach your target audience—but they also limit the number of impressions that you can bid on. This can put your campaigns at risk of spending in full.

Forecasting and reporting metrics provide a sense of scale to help you determine whether you can spend your campaign budget in full and achieve campaign objectives. Leverage your preferred tools in the Campaigns, Planner, Reports, and Insights apps to help right-size your campaigns’ Allowlist and Blocklist strategies:

Creatives are central to ensuring your message resonates with its intended audiences, and affects how users engage with your ad. Each campaign must include at least one creative, but many advertisers add multiple creatives to compare performance and adjust accordingly as the campaign progresses.

In a campaign’s Creatives section, you’ll select only one creative format, then choose creatives that you’ve previously added in the Creatives app, and/or upload new ones directly from the campaign. Refer to Assign a creative to a campaign for step-by-step instructions on how to complete either process for both new and existing campaigns.

If you’re still building your creatives or haven’t added them to the Campaigns app, first refer to “Creatives and specifications” collection overview for more resources on preparing, adding, and managing creatives.

Add one or more ungrouped or grouped creatives to the campaign. These creatives were previously added in the Creatives app.

Add a creative to the campaign that hasn’t been previously added in the Creatives app. Note that adding a creative via + New Creative will not save it to the Creatives app for future use. If you plan to add the same creative to a future campaign, refer to Add creatives for more information on how to add new creatives to your creative library.

Advanced modeling refers to the Bid Model optimization tool. Apply Bid Model settings to the campaign’s creative(s) to adjust bids with Bid Modifiers, allocate budgets with Spend Ratios, and define priorities with Dimension Priorities. Refer to Bid Model overview for more information on how these Bid Model components work individually and in tandem.

The TV Ad Buying option signals that you plan to run your campaign on the connected TV (CTV) and over-the-top (OTT) channels. Note that you must select the TV Ad Buying toggle in the Creatives section to enable the CTV and OTT TV Traffic Type options in the Device section.

Five advanced-targeting settings are available for video campaigns: Placement Type, Roll Position, Player Size, Skippability, and Playback Method. Refer to their descriptions below for more information.

Placement Type: Defines where the ad is placed in the requested page content.

Roll Position: Defines where the ad can play in the requested video content.

Player Size: Defines the size of the player in which the ad plays.

Skippability: Defines whether the viewer is allowed to skip the ad after watching the first few seconds of it.

Playback Method: Defines whether the video’s sound is enabled or disabled when the ad plays.

Each advanced-targeting setting for video campaigns includes the Unknown setting. Not all exchanges provide information about video Placement Type, Roll Position, Player Size, Skippability, or Playback Method. Selecting Unknown will allow the campaign to target ad placements that do not specify these items. We recommend including this option in your campaign if you have scale concerns.

One advanced-targeting setting is available for audio campaigns: Roll Position. Refer to its description below for more information.

Roll Position: Defines where the ad can play in the requested audio content.

The audiences you target tell the campaign which users should see your ad. Each campaign must include at least one audience, but many advertisers add multiple audiences depending on the campaign’s objectives. For example, they’ll choose one audience that the campaign should target, and another audience of users that it should exclude.

In a campaign’s Audience section, you’ll select one or more audience types (Matched, Lookalike, Segmented, Retargeted, Geofarmed, Contextual, Campaign, ABM), then add one or more individual audiences that you’ve previously created in the Audiences app.

Refer to Assign an audience to a campaign for step-by-step instructions on how to add audiences to a campaign.

If you’re still developing your audience strategy or haven’t added an audience to the Audiences app, first refer to the overview resources linked in the Audience key terms and concepts section below. These articles provide descriptions of each audience type, and share more information on creating and managing audiences before you add them to a campaign.

Add one or more audiences to the campaign that you’ve already added in the Audiences app. Before making a selection, click the Allowlist tab to target the audience(s), or click the Blocklist tab to avoid showing your ads to users who are included in the audience(s).

Follow a shortcut to the Audiences app, where you’ll create new audiences or manage existing ones. Once you’re ready, you can use Select Audiences to add the desired audiences to the campaign from the Campaigns app, or follow the steps outlined in Assign an audience to a campaign to do so from the Audiences app.

The way a campaign executes your audience-targeting rules differs based on whether you’ve added a single audience, multiple audiences of the same type, or multiple audiences of different types. For example, a single campaign may target both Contextual and Retargeted audiences. Review Audience Targeting Behavior for more information on how audience targeting works when you add more than one type of audience to a single campaign.

Matched audiences are enabled by IQM’s ID graph and made up of users from advertisers’ first-party data such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM) data for specialty campaigns, or past voters for political campaigns, for example. You’ll add your customer lists to the Matched audience to target these offline users through digital channels.

Refer to Selecting a Matched audience for more information, and review How to upload a file for audience matching for audience-creation instructions.

Lookalike audiences are made up of users with similar characteristics to an existing Matched audience. You’ll select the source audience, choose how similar the new audience should be to the existing one, and specify the desired audience size to generate the lookalike audience.

Refer to What is lookalike audience? for more information, and review How to add Lookalike audience for audience-creation instructions.

Segmented audiences include groups of users who share common characteristics. You’ll add segments or groups of segments to the audience to reach that unique group of users. These audiences can be highly specific or more broad, depending on your campaign’s goals and your scale considerations. For example, you might include empty nesters in their late 60s who donate to medical-related causes, own their home, and show interest in outdoor activities.

Refer to Selecting a Segmented audiences to choose curated audience segments or create your own from thousands of customer attributes.

Retargeted audiences include past website visitors. You’ll choose a data-collection period, and add a unique Pixel Script Code, also known as a retargeting tag, to your website’s header. Once the retargeting tag is installed, the Retargeted audience will capture any unique users who visit the website. You can target the Retargeted audience to help increase engagement by bringing past visitors back to your website.

Refer to Selecting a Retargeted audience for more information on how to create a Retargeted audience and obtain a Pixel Script Code.

Geofarmed audiences include people who have visited a specific geographic location defined by you, whether on-premise or in proximity to the point of interest. You’ll define a geographical area by searching an address, creating a virtual boundary on a map, or uploading files of the desired locations. Users who visited the point of interest during the date range you specified, and at the frequency you indicated, will get added to the audience. For example, a political advertiser might wish to include users who visited political rallies in New York at least twice in October.

Refer to What is a Geofarmed audience? for more information, and review How can I create a Geofarmed audience? for audience-creation instructions.

Contextual audiences are formed by grouping users together based on their online activity. You determine these groups by indicating a list of relevant keywords and/or URLs and a timeframe. We add a user to the Contextual audience when they visit sites that feature those keywords or URLs, browse them during the time period you select, and meet any other parameters that you specify during audience setup. You can target the Contextual audience to advertise to that group of users across the open internet based on their actual browsing behaviors.

Review Create or manage a Contextual audience for step-by-step instructions on how to create a contextual audience and add it to a new or existing campaign.

If you’re still learning about contextual audiences or would like to review example scenarios, first refer to Contextual audience overview.

Campaign audiences are made up of users that you’ve reached in past or current campaigns. With this high-value group of users, you can re-engage audiences who are already familiar with your brand, or offer new products and services to existing customers. You can also add a Campaign audience to an awareness campaign’s Blocklist to help ensure that budgets are allocated to exposing new users to the brand.

Refer to What is a campaign audience? for more information, and review How to add a campaign audience? for audience-creation instructions.

Healthcare advertisers can create ABM audiences that leverage comprehensive hospital data from Healthlink Dimensions (HLD). With this data, you can pass personalized messages to healthcare professionals at scale, and craft highly specific healthcare audiences based on account-based attributes such as health systems, specialty practices, and NPI reach.

Review Create or manage an Account Based Marketing (ABM) audience for step-by-step instructions on how to create an ABM audience and add it to a new or existing campaign.

If you’re still learning about ABM audiences or would like to review eligibility requirements and pricing details, first refer to Account Based Marketing (ABM) audience overview.

Advertisers use pre-bid targeting to ensure higher media quality and ad targeting that aligns with the brand’s standards. When you bid on an ad placement, verification partners like Integral Ad Sciences (IAS) or DoubleVerify (DV) determine whether or not it’s appropriate for the brand based on a predetermined set of criteria. This verification is performed on an impression-by-impression basis to help ensure you’re not eliminating entire sites or publications unnecessarily.

Pre-bid audiences allow you to select multiple pre-bid segments and group them together. We recommend creating a pre-bid audience when you want to use the same set of pre-bid segments across multiple campaigns. You can add the audience to each of those campaigns instead of manually selecting and adding segments for each campaign. Refer to Create or manage a pre-bid audience for more details on how to add fraud, IVT, brand safety, and/or viewability segments to a pre-bid audience.

In a campaign’s Pre-bid Audience section, you’ll choose pre-bid audience(s) that you’ve previously added in the Audiences app, and/or select individual segments to add to the campaign. Review Target pre-bid audiences or pre-bid segments for step-by-step instructions on how to complete either process for both new and existing campaigns.

If you’re still learning about fraud, brand safety, and viewability pre-bid targeting or would like to review pricing details, first refer to Fraud, brand safety, and viewability pre-bid targeting overview and Pre-bid targeting frequently asked questions (FAQ).

Add one or more pre-bid audiences to the campaign. These audiences were previously added in the Audiences app. Note that you can still remove any of the pre-bid audience segments to remove them from the campaign’s targeting rules without impacting the original pre-bid audience.

Add individual pre-bid segments to the campaign. Note that adding any segments via + Add Pre-bid Segments will not save them to the Audiences app for future use. If you plan to add the same segment or group of segments to a future campaign, refer to Create or manage a pre-bid audience for more information on how to add grouped pre-bid segments to your Audiences library via pre-bid audiences.

Campaign Locations are the geographic areas where users are located. You can choose which areas are most or least relevant to your campaign, then set up its targeting rules to include or exclude those locations.

Refer to Choose the target location for your campaign to add the location(s) to your campaign, then review Locations Allowlist/Blocklist for step-by-step instructions on how to add them to either the campaign’s Allowlist or Blocklist.

Search and add states, DMAs, countries, cities, or ZIP codes; and congressional districts, state senates, or state houses, then add them to the campaign’s Allowlist or Blocklist.

Draw a circle, polygon, or rectangle on a map of the country of your choice to define a custom area to include or exclude. You can also upload a file of locations or addresses and add them to the campaign’s Allowlist or Blocklist.

Manually enter the ZIP codes, or upload a file of ZIP codes, and add them to the campaign’s Allowlist or Blocklist.

Campaigns apply an “OR” relationship to your location targeting selections. This means that your campaign will target a user if they’re located in any of the locations you added to an Allowlist, as long as all other campaign targeting criteria are met. The same is true for Blocklists: Your campaign will exclude a user if they’re located in any of the locations you added to the Blocklist, as long as all other campaign targeting criteria are met. Refer to AND/OR relationships for more information and examples.

Inventory determines where your target audience will encounter your ads. You can customize your inventory targeting strategy by choosing particular ad exchanges; publisher categories; and other criteria such as ad format, placement type, targeting options, and any other relevant attributes.

Inventory groups allow you to select multiple inventory items and group them together into a single collection. Inventory groups are useful when you want to target or block the same set of inventory across multiple campaigns. You can add the audience to each of those campaigns instead of manually selecting and adding Open Exchange, Private Marketplace (PMP), or Contextual inventory for each campaign.

If you’re still determining your inventory strategy or haven’t added deals or inventory groups in the Inventory app, first refer to these resources:

In a campaign’s Inventory section, you’ll Assign Private Marketplace (PMP) deals or inventory groups to a campaign. These can include individual PMP deals; the Open Exchange, PMP, and Contextual inventory groups that you previously created in the Inventory app; and Curated inventory groups. You can also choose individual inventory exchanges and publisher categories to target directly from the campaign.

An inventory group is a collection of inventory sources. The collection is categorized based on specific criteria such as ad format, placement type, or other relevant attributes that each inventory source has in common. You’ll group inventory when you want to target or block the same set of inventory across multiple campaigns to streamline your operations and manage your campaigns effectively. Refer to Inventory groups overview for more information.

A PMP deal is an arrangement between an advertiser and a supply-side partner (SSP) or publisher. These deals are used to purchase ad inventory through a private, invitation-only auction. Unlike Open Exchange inventory, PMP deals provide more control and access to more premium inventory. Refer to What is a Private Marketplace Deal? for more information.

Choose one or more inventory groups to target or block. These groups were previously created from Open Exchange, PMP, or Contextual inventory in the Inventory app.

Follow a shortcut to the Inventory app, where you’ll create new inventory groups or manage existing ones. Once you’re ready, you can use + Select Inventory Group to add the desired groups to the campaign from the Campaigns app. Refer to the steps outlined in Assign Private Marketplace (PMP) deals or inventory groups to a campaign for more details.

Choose one or more PMP inventory deals. These deals were previously added one by one in the Inventory app.

Add a new PMP deal to the campaign that hasn’t been previously added in the Inventory app. Note that adding inventory via + Add Deals won’t save it to the Inventory app for future use. If you plan to add the same deal to a future campaign, refer to Create or manage a Private Marketplace (PMP) inventory deal for more information on creating deals in the Inventory app.

You can add three different types of inventory to a campaign’s Inventory Allowlist or Inventory Blocklist:

Refer to Manage campaign Allowlists and Blocklists - Inventory Allowlist/Blocklist to set up these targeting and blocking options for your campaign.

In a campaign’s Conversion section, you’ll associate tracking pixels with your campaign to assign credit for a conversion. Choose a tracking pixel that you’re previously added in the Conversions app, and/or create a new pixel directly from the campaign. Depending on how you set up the conversion, this attribution may be view based (the ad that was last viewed), click based (the ad that was last clicked) or a combination of the two.

The Conversion section is also where you’ll add any postback information to the campaign. Refer to Postback Conversions below for more details.

If you’re still learning about conversions, review What are Conversions?; and when you’re ready to create conversions in the platform, refer to Add a new Conversion for step-by-step instructions.

When you track conversions using a tracking pixel, you’ll place a small image pixel on your website to allow IQM to measure user actions such as page visits, purchases, or signups. We attribute those conversions to specific ads or campaigns to provide insights into user behavior and preferences, as well as campaign performance.

Mobile app-based conversions use postback conversions only. Postback conversions allow for server-to-server communication with measurement partners such as Kochava, Appsflyer, Singular, and Adjust. You’ll set up the postback on your preferred measurement partner’s platform and copy a click URL, then return to the IQM platform to add the click URL to a new postback conversion and assign it to your campaign.

Choose one or more pixels for campaign attribution. These pixels were previously created in the Conversions app.

Add details for a new pixel directly from the campaign. The same pixel details and advanced settings are available as the ones that you manage when you create pixels in the Conversions app.

Choose a single postback for communication with a given measurement partner. This postback was previously created in the Conversions app.

Add details for a new postback directly from the campaign. The same fields are available as the ones that you complete when you add postback details in the Conversions app.

Conversion modeling is a machine learning technique used to attribute conversions to ads that might not have received direct clicks or views from the same device. For example, a user may have watched your video ad on their Connected TV (CTV) device, then converted on their Mobile device. Refer to How IQM Attributes Conversions for more information on cross-device attribution.

With the average American owning more than 20 internet-connected devices, the ability to recognize consumers across channels is as important as reaching them with your ad in the first place. Review IQM Identity Graph for more information on the steps we take to recognize consumers across channels and devices and unify identifiers to a single profile.

Each day of the week and time of day presents a unique opportunity to engage with users. For example, the food service industry segments their menus and offerings by breakfast, lunch, dinner, and late night. They may also reserve certain days or times for distinct offerings such as a weekly Taco Tuesday or a recurring Happy Hour on weeknights. In a similar way, campaign scheduling allows you to serve ads on the days, and at the times, that you decide for each individual campaign.

With campaign scheduling, you’ll set a weekly schedule to determine when your ads will be displayed to your target audience. You’ll select the specific dates and times that you’d like to allow, and any dates and times you don’t select will be blocked from serving ad impressions. Scheduling decisions may be informed by a number of factors, such as when your target audience is most likely to engage with your ads, or during your business’s operating hours.

A campaign’s Scheduling section includes cells in three colors: white, blue, and yellow. The meaning of these colors differs depending on whether you have selected one or more cells, or haven’t selected any cells. Refer to Key terms and concepts - Cell colors for more information and scenarios.

Refer to Campaign scheduling (dayparting) overview for more details on how your campaign’s scheduling settings are executed, and review Schedule a campaign’s ads for step-by-step instructions on how to add scheduling settings to a new or existing campaign.

In combination with audience targeting, demographic targeting helps ensure your ads are reaching the right users.

In a campaign’s Demographics section, you’ll restrict ad serving to the age groups, genders, languages, interests, income ranges, and/or ethnicities that you specify.

Selecting Unknown will allow the campaign to target ad placements that do not specify these items. Consider including this option in your campaign if you would like to target particular demographics but have scale concerns.

In a campaign’s Device section, you’ll target specific types of devices, networks, manufacturers, operating systems, and more. If you apply device targeting to the campaign, ensure that your selections align with the size and format of your creatives, as well as any inventory you may be targeting.

A campaign’s Bid Strategy determines how aggressively it should bid based on how much you’d like to spend, how you’d like to pace bidding, and how often you’d like for users to see an ad.

Three elements comprise a campaign’s Bid Strategy:

Refer to Bid Strategy overview to learn more about Budget Capping, Frequency capping, and Bid Pacing; and review Manage a campaign’s Bid Strategy to add or manage these campaign settings for new and existing campaigns.

In a campaign’s Advanced section, you can apply advanced settings related to device ID(s) and/or internet protocol (IP) addresses. You’ll choose which device IDs and/or IP addresses should be placed on the campaign’s Allowlist or Blocklist.

Refer to Advanced Allowlist/Blocklist for step-by-step instructions on how to apply Advanced Allowlist or Blocklist settings to the campaign.