What this means is, this setting will apply to YouTube and Discovery campaigns because those are Google Properties. While you can use Custom Audiences for Display campaigns, Display placements are not Google properties.
How it works
This third strategy (one of my favorites) does involve placement targeting—placement targeting for YouTube.
How to do it
So what you’ll do is create a new custom audience and choose the “Include people with the following interests or behaviors” option. Below that box, you’ll then see “Expand audience by also including:” where you can click on “People who browse types of websites.
Go to Tools & Settings > Shared Library > Audience Manager to create your custom audience.
Notes on this strategy
This strategy takes a list of all of your competitors’ URLs and makes an audience off of those domains.
Rather, this setting tells Google to target your ads at users who visit websites similar to the ones you enter.
This strategy sets your Video and Discovery campaigns to appear in front of users who have searched competitor terms.
It is important to note that this targeting works differently than adding search terms. We are not and cannot target users who actually visited the URLs you entered. You cannot do remarketing without having your tag on those URLs, and this is not placement targeting for the Display Network.
2. Create custom audiences with competitor URLs
What I do want to point out is that last sentence in the quote above.
How it works
Besides keyword or search term targeting for your Custom Audiences, you can also enter in specific URLs. This was a strategy I loved using in the Custom Affinity days, but it’s still available in Custom Audiences.
How to do it
Test them out for your Video and Discovery campaigns (Discovery now includes Gmail placements) to get in front of your competitors’ audience in a different way.
Notes on this strategy
Choose the option to target “People who searched for any of these terms on Google.“
“On other campaigns, the terms will be used as interests or purchase intentions.”
3. Place YouTube ads on competitor videos
To do this, head to your YouTube ad placement options.
How it works
This strategy puts you in front of your competitors’ audiences by advertising on their own YouTube videos. One of the best feelings I get in this industry is showing a client the placement report for a particular ad group and showing them what awareness, views, and conversions we’re getting from their competitors’ YouTube videos or YouTube channel.
How to do it
Using keywords to target other brand names, products, or services is one of the easiest ways to go after competitors in Google Ads. But targeting competitor keywords can get expensive. The good news is, there are more options we have than just the Search Network.
