SMB Newbie Hangouts on Air: Using the Google Display Network to generate brand awareness

AdWords Specialists Courtney Pannell, Adam Ziegler and Bethany Powers hosted a Hangout on Air yesterday as the second installment of the SMB Newbie Hangouts on Air series.

During the Hangout, we focused on the Google Display Network (GDN) and how to utilize GDN targeting to expand your reach. Even if you’re a small business, the GDN can be a powerful advertising tool, but there’s a lot to learn about it. We shared tips about ad formats, bidding, campaign structure, and targeting options to get you started off on the right foot!

Here are a couple of user questions we answered during the Hangout:

The Google Display Network is vast. If I’m a local business, how can I ensure my ads only show to users in my area?
Even though the Google Display Network contains a wide variety of websites, you can definitely control who sees your ad on those sites. Let’s say you’re a restaurant owner in Charleston, SC and you only want users in that area to see your ad. On the ‘Settings’ tab in your account, you’d want to set your location targeting to the Charleston area, so that only users physically located in that area could see your ad on the GDN.

There are so many targeting methods on the GDN. How do I know which is best for me?
There are quite a few targeting options for Display campaigns (such as contextual targeting with keywords, placements, topics and interest categories). If you’re new to the GDN, you may want to start off with the contextual targeting option. How that works: you’ll specify a set of keywords and we’ll use those keywords to match your ads to websites on the GDN that might be relevant. That will give you a good starting point to see what kind of sites are out there and are relevant to your business.

To learn more about how to get started with AdWords, visit our Help Center, check out the AdWords Community forum, or call us at 866-2-GOOGLE if you already have an AdWords account.

And remember to tune in to the live stream of our next Hangout on Air at 11 a.m. PDT, Thursday September 13, when we discuss how to optimize your account to generate customer purchases.

Posted by Courtney Pannell, Adam Ziegler and Bethany Powers, SMB Adwords Support Team