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Aug 05
What is site targeting?

What is: site targeting?

Choozle’s self-serve digital advertising platform is built on the principles of transparency and flexibility to place your digital ads in front of your targeted audience, when you want, and where you want. There are dozens of highly targeted tactics available that utilize data, geolocation, device information, and other indicators to reach the exact audience you are seeking.

A key part of transparent control over your campaigns is determining where you want your ads to appear, and where you do not want them to appear. Site targeting is one of the tactics that puts you in complete control of where your ad will be displayed on the internet. Through Choozle you are able to create preferred lists and blocklists that you can leverage in your targeted campaigns.

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How does it work?

What sites can I target?

Unique advantages of site targeting


How does site targeting work?

When utilizing site targeting on a Choozle campaign you are able to bid on available ad placements that match your indicated audience on your targeted sites. If one of the desired sites you are targeting does not have ad inventory available in the real-time bidding (RTB) exchanges we cannot serve the desired impressions. Unfortunately, due to the ad inventory on sites being dynamic in real-time, we cannot check your sites beforehand to see if they have placements open to RTB. This is why it is valuable to add more sites than less when targeting a specific group. You won’t incur any charges if you are not able to serve an ad on them.

Through Choozle’s Site Lists Library you are able to upload or manually create custom site lists that can be used to narrow in your targeting on campaigns. To begin creating lists navigate to the Site Lists Library and click the + icon to create a new list. You are then able to name your list and begin uploading URLs. You are able to upload sites manually or you can download our template to upload multiple sites together.

The lists you create or upload can be used in two ways, preferred lists or blocklists. Preferred lists are used to target the URL addresses where you want your ads to appear, and blocklists will block specific websites where you don’t want your ads to appear.

When utilizing site lists you are also able to apply bidding adjustments that will prioritize the specific inventory segments and bid more aggressively on the selected inventory within your site lists. By including a bid adjustment of <1.0 you are automatically multiplying the base bid on any inventory that matches your site list, in turn increasing your win rate on securing desired inventory faster. Alternatively, you can uncheck the continue bidding adjustment and bid exclusively on the inventory within your preferred list.


What sites can I target?

Site lists can include URLs with or without a URL protocol identifier. The exclusion of a protocol (i.e. choozle.com) will mean that inventory on all available protocols will be bid on (i.e. http://, https://, www., etc.). Subpages preceding the main URL (i.e. blog.choozle.com) will also be bid on when not specified, but if the subpage follows the main URL (i.e. choozle.com/blog) it will not be available to be bid on.

Top level domains can also be targeted or blocked using a site list to create more opportunities for bidding while remaining highly targeted. For example, to target all sites ending in .edu (like colorado.edu, nyu.edu, berkley.edu), include a row with only .edu within your site list.


Unique advantages of site targeting

Ad fraud, poor viewability, and brand safety control are three consistent risks that come into play with almost every digital campaign. By creating preferred lists and blocklists for your campaigns you can take measures to protect your ad dollars and prioritize higher value ad placements.

Ad fraud refers to any illegitimate activity on an advertisement at the expense of the advertiser. While Choozle has implemented a three-tier system to protect against ad fraud, there are still further measures you can take to prevent fraudulent activity and protect your ad dollars. With access to Choozle’s detailed reporting, you can monitor your campaigns for fraudulent activity and create blocklists to prevent fraudsters. Blocklists should also be paired with preferred lists to create a solid foundation for safer ads. These lists should be consistently reviewed and refined over time.

Poor viewability for ads is another challenge in programmatic advertising because inventory is mostly bought per impression. The purpose of viewability is to help advertisers pay only for the ads that users will actually see. By tracking the viewability of your ads you’re able to refine your preferred list and blocklists to optimize for ad placements with reliable viewability rates.

Finally, monitoring and refining your site targeting and blocking gives you more control over your brand safety. Brand safety has been a hot topic for the past few years and while Choozle takes preemptive measures to protect your brand you are able to implement your unique brand safety needs with site targeting. Utilizing blocklists and preferred lists is not a one-stop fix for all of these issues and risks, but with some effort and diligence, you are able to ensure you are maximizing your ad spend and eliminating unnecessary risks.


Instead of using keywords and letting data decide which sites to run your ads on, site targeting lets you list the actual URLs and web pages you want your ads to appear on so nothing is left to chance. Site targeting keeps you in control of your ad campaigns and helps you reach audiences you are very familiar with when you know the specific websites they like to visit.

About the author:

Zack Rosse is a Content Specialist at Choozle – Easy Digital Advertising®. Always learning and connecting the dots, Zack helps translate some of the tougher answers to simple questions marketers ask themselves. Outside of the office, Zack loves hunting for old vinyl to add to his collection and picking up garbage on his favorite walking trails.

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