Web Account Targeting Guide

What is Account Targeting 

Use this tactic to display ads to target accounts that visited your site, specifying pages or the number of page views.

This approach boosts engagement by re-engaging potential buyers from target accounts who know your brand but haven't converted. Create tailored middle or bottom-of-funnel creatives for best results. Learn more in our creative best practices.

To launch this tactic, you will use our Account Targeting feature combined with a Composite Audience that tracks your target accounts and page views.

Essentials before you start

The following steps are required before you can launch this type of tactic:

• Install the Pixel to track visitors.
• Create at least one set of Static Web ads.
• Create at least one conversion audience. We recommend creating one conversion audience for each single form submission on your website.

Launch Account-Based Targeting Campaign

To launch this tactic, you will use the following building blocks to define your audience:

• An Account List.
• An Attribute Audience: this includes your Account List and Buyer Persona attributes.
• A Page View Audience to track who is visiting your site.
• A Composite Audience combining audiences 2 and 3.
• An Account Targeting Campaign targeting the Composite Audience.

Step 1: Create an Account List

Define the accounts you want to target in your campaign by creating an Account List. Learn more here.

Step 2: Create the first Audience: Attributes

Combine your Account List with Buyer Persona attributes (e.g., seniority, functional area).

• Go to Audiences > Website Audiences.
• Click Create Website Audience and select Audience Type = Attributes.
• Define the audience by combining your Account List with Buyer Persona attributes.
• Name the audience and click Create Audience.

To learn more, watch this video tutorial or read this article.

Step 3: Create the second Audience: Pages Viewed

Track website visitors based on specific page views.

• Go to Audiences > Website Audiences.
• Click Create Website Audience and select Audience Type = Pages Viewed.
• Define how long visitors stay in this audience (e.g., 90 days).
• Name the audience and click Create Audience.

Note: It may take up to 48 hours for this audience to start tracking visitors.

Step 4: Combine both audiences using a Composite Audience

Overlay the Attribute Audience (Step 2) with the Page View Audience (Step 3).

• Go to Audiences > Website Audiences.
• Click Create Website Audience > New Composite Audience.
• Select the Attribute Audience from Step 2 and the Page View Audience from Step 3 in the dropdowns.
• Name the Composite Audience and click Create Audience.

In the example below, we created a Pages Viewed Audience tracking visitors who viewed at least 1 page. To learn more about creating this type of audience, click here.

Step 5: Launch Account Targeting for Web

• Navigate to Advertising > Campaigns & Playbooks.
• Click Create and select Ad Campaigns in the dropdown.

• Select Drive Engagement as your Campaign Objective and Click Next. 

Campaign Name

Click Edit Name at the top of your campaign and choose a name that will be easy to identify across AdRoll ABM reports and platform features. We recommend following a consistent naming convention for all your campaigns.

Campaign Channel

Scroll down to the section called Channel to select the channel where you wish to run your ads:

• Web: Your ads will be served on the Web (Desktop and Mobile) and Apps.
• Connected TV: Your CTV video ads will be delivered through streaming apps, either built into smart TVs or through devices like Roku, Apple TV, and gaming consoles connected to a TV.

If you want to run the same campaign both in Web and CTV you will need to launch two separate campaigns, one for each channel.

Please note that this article will guide you through launching a Web Channel campaign.

Campaign Schedule

Scroll down to the section called Schedule. The schedule you select will be applied to all AdGroups within your campaign, unless you set up Custom Schedules for specific AdGroups.

• Specify your Start Date:
  • Here you can specify if you want to launch your campaign Immediately or on a specific date.
  • Please note that all campaigns will go through a 48-hour review period before they are approved and go live.
• Specify your End Date:
  • For evergreen campaigns, select No end date.
  • For time bound campaigns, set up a specific end date.

Please note that all dates and times you set are expressed in UTC (Coordinated Universal Time), this default time zone cannot be changed.

Default Start and End Dates	Specific Start and End Dates

Advanced Options: Day Parting

Adjusting this advanced setting is not recommended. If you want to limit specific days of the week and times to serve ads, read this article for more information.

Day parting is automatically adjusted by BidIQ®, our proprietary real-time bidding algorithm processing hundreds of variables for each and every user, to determine whether or not to bid, and how much, at the time of each potential impression.

Web Bid Settings and Advanced Options

Here you will be able to choose how your campaign optimizes its Bid Strategy by adjusting the algorithm to prioritize clicks. This section also offers you advanced bidding settings to control Frequency Capping and Exclusions. 

Choose Bid Strategy to Clicks for enhancing traffic by maximizing clicks.

Leaving the Target CPC values blank will let us automatically maximize clicks within your budget. If you set a specific CPC, BidIQ will optimize to reach your target; however, the actual CPC may vary.

If you need help choosing a Bid Strategy, read this article. Please note that Bid Strategy options differ by channel.

Advanced Options: Frequency Capping

Adjusting this advanced setting is not recommended. If you want to limit the number of impressions per user per day, read this article for more information.

Frequency capping is dynamically adjusted by BidIQ®, our proprietary real-time bidding algorithm processing hundreds of variables for each and every user, to optimize how many times your ads appear to the same person.

Advanced Options: General Exclusions 

To find Campaign-specific exclusions, scroll down to the section Bid Settings and Advanced Options and click Advanced Options.

Check this box to choose whether to target your existing customers in this campaign, as defined in your account General Exclusion Settings.

Please note that we will automatically exclude competitors and coworkers from your campaigns.

To make changes to your existing account General Exclusions, exit your campaign and navigate to Settings > General Exclusions and follow the instructions in this article.

Advanced Options: Campaign-specific Exclusions

To find Campaign-specific exclusions, scroll down to the section Bid Settings and Advanced Options and click Advanced Options.

Web Campaign-specific exclusions allow you to configure Domain and App exclusions at the campaign level to control the placements where your ads are served. Campaign-specific exclusions are applied in addition to your existing General Exclusions.

Learn more about Campaign-specific exclusions in this article.

Step 6. Configure your AdGroup Settings

An AdGroup is a fundamental organizational unit within a campaign. Creating multiple AdGroups within one campaign lets you select specific ads for a specific audience, environments, locations, and custom schedules.

• At a minimum, a campaign will have one AdGroup; you can add more as needed.
• You can measure performance for each individual AdGroup.
• Your Campaign budget is automatically allocated across all the AdGroups in your campaign; you can't set specific budget allocations by AdGroup.

AdGroup Name

Choose a naming convention that is easy to recognize in AdRoll ABM reports and dashboards.

AdGroup Schedule

If you want this AdGroup to run on a different schedule than your main campaign schedule, toggle on Use Custom AdGroup Schedule and select your start and end dates.

AdGroup Audience Target Options

• Under Targeting, open the Audience section and select Accounts to target your ideal buyer persona from a list of accounts. Use this when you want to reach companies (and the right people within them) rather than specific individuals.
• You can only select one audience type per ad group. If you need to run more than one, add a separate ad group for each.

• Under Audience, choose the Composite Audience from Step 4.

• Exclude conversion audiences to avoid serving ads to users who’ve already converted.

AdGroup Audience Location

By default, our AI-powered BidIQ algorithm will choose the best locations for you to optimize campaign performance based on where the users in your target audience are. We recommend using the automatically targeting the best locations to cover 100% of users in your audience, regardless of where they are located at the moment. This is especially crucial in today's remote work environment.

Adjusting geo targeting limits the locations of users seeing your ads. If you want to select specific audience locations, read this article to learn more.

Please note that this is an AdGroup setting, and you can have multiple AdGroups within one campaign targeting different user locations with different ads.

Target by Categories

Categories let you target whole types of content rather than individual page text. Select the kinds of sites and content your ads should appear alongside, and we place your ads across content that matches.

Open Target by Categories and use any of the following:

1. Search - Type in the search field to find a category by name.
2. Browse - Scroll the alphabetical list of top-level categories.
3. Expand - Select the arrow beside a category to see the more specific categories inside it. The number beside each category tells you how many it contains.
4. Suggestions - Select Suggestions in the top right of the card for AI Assistant-recommended categories.

Select the checkbox beside a category to add it. You can select as many as you like, at any level of the list.

Target/Exclude by Keywords

Your ads are displayed on websites and apps that align with the content you've specified through targeted keywords, ensuring they appear in contexts that are relevant to your audience and complement your brand message.

Target keywords to ensure your ads appear next to relevant content, and exclude keywords to avoid placements that don’t align with your brand. AdRoll Contextual Keywords support multilingual targeting. English keywords automatically trigger translations in 53 other languages. For more details, see Contextual Keyword Targeting.

Environments

By default, we will automatically serve ads to your audience users in Desktop, Mobile Web, and Mobile Apps. We recommend using the Automatic Environments default setting to cover 100% of users in your audience, regardless of the type of environment.

While not advised, you can exclude Desktop, Mobile Web, and Mobile App by turning off each specific Environment. Learn more about how to exclude Environments here. 

Please note that this is an AdGroup setting, and you can have multiple AdGroups within one campaign targeting different environments with different ads.

AdGroup creatives

At a minimum, select the following ad types and sizes:

• Image Web Ads: 160x600, 300x250, 300x600, 320x50, 728x90, 970x250, 600x500, 600x315
• Native Web Ads: 600x600, 600x315, 600x500

You can create additional AdGroups with different ad creative variations to let BidIQ optimize towards the best-performing ads automatically.

Create more AdGroups if needed

Add additional AdGroups to your campaign as needed by clicking New AdGroup and repeating the prior steps to define: AdGroup Name, Custom Schedule, Audience Inclusions/Exclusions, Environments, Location, and Ad sets.

Step 7. Choose your Campaign Budget

You have the option to select between Daily Budget or Monthly Budget.

The Monthly budget can be prorated (based on the number of days left in the month) or you can use the entire monthly budget for the number of days remaining in the month. Your budget settings apply to all AdGroups. 

Read this article for tips on selecting your campaign budget.

Step 8. Finish later or launch

Once you have completed all the steps in this guide, you can:

• Click Finish Later to save a draft. This allows you to save your work in progress and return later to finalize and submit for launch.
• Click Submit if you are ready to confirm the campaign should launch on the Start Date. Launch date is subject to our ~48-hour ad policy review period. 

Campaign Troubleshooting

If you are experiencing issues after launching your campaign, find tips to troubleshoot your campaign in this article.