Introduction to Web Campaigns

Anna Forlenza

Updated December 12, 2025 14:17

New Campaign Creation Flow

Beginning July 2025, AdRoll has started to slowly roll out a new campaign creation process for a better user experience and added features. Some customers may not yet see this experience, therefore may have fewer settings available than described here. To get expedited access, please reach out to your Customer Success Manager. Learn more.

What is a Web Campaign

A Web Campaign is a targeted advertising strategy designed to reach your audience across the web on desktop and mobile devices. Different types of campaigns aim to achieve specific goals such as brand awareness or increased engagement.

Key features of web campaigns:

High quality Supply and Inventory: Our technology is layered over the leading exchanges and publishers, providing you access to the high-quality display, native, video, at a global scale in real-time.
Powered by BidIQ®: Our proprietary AI-powered bidding system helps optimize ad delivery by finding the right visitor, at the right time and place, at the optimal price. BidIQ® is enabled by default and continuously learns to improve future campaigns.
Ad Campaign Review Process: All campaigns undergo review to ensure compliance with our Advertising Policies and Guidelines. Reviews typically complete within one business day.
Multi-Creative Formats: Web campaigns can serve display ads across desktop, mobile, native supporting multiple creative ad types Static Image, Native, Video, and HTML-5.
Advanced Campaign Settings: Web campaigns give you control on advanced web settings, such as environments, placement exclusions, day partying, frequency capping, etc.

For a simpler plug-and-play approach, we offer Advertising Playbooks, a pre-packaged campaign sequence easy to launch and manage with default settings based on our best practices.

Web Campaign Tactics Available

Depending on your package you may have access to the following web campaign types:

Campaign Tactic	Definition
Website Retargeting Campaign	Re-engage users who visited or bounced from your site, keeping your brand visible and aiming for form-fill Conversions.
Account Targeting Campaigns	Target the buying committee within your target Account Lists. These customizable campaigns offer advanced audience building and advanced settings.
Contact Targeting Campaign	Target known contacts from your own e-mail lists and CRM. You can use basic imported Contact lists or Enhanced Contact Lists.
Lookalike Targeting Campaign	Target unknown users that have not visited your website and that are exhibiting similar behaviors to the users who are visiting and engaging with your website. Powered by IntentMap.

Web Campaign Settings

Some settings are only available for the New Campaign Creation Flow

As of July 2025, the campaign creation process for creating Web and CTV campaigns has been updated for a better user experience, along with some new capabilities. Some of the settings below are only available for campaigns created with the new campaign creation flow. Learn more.

The following table includes the different settings available for Web Campaigns.

Setting	Description	Recommendations
Campaign Budget	You can set up your campaign budget as Daily or Monthly based on your preferences. 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 amount of days remaining in the month. Learn more about budget settings here.	Don't worry about overspending. As long as your budget remains unchanged for an entire month, you won't be charged more than your set daily budget multiplied by the average number of days in a month (30.4) Be aware that if you change your daily budget before the end of the month, it will restart your 30.4-day budget cap.
Bid Strategy	Setting a Campaign goal helps AdRoll prioritize bids: Conversions: Focus on those most likely to convert with your Conversion Audiences. Clicks: Enhance traffic by maximizing clicks. Impressions: Boost the number of ad displays. Learn more about here.	Avoid restrictive CPA, CPC, or CPM targets that can limit ad delivery. We recommend that you gradually reduce your target by no more than 20% per edit. For example, if your campaign is currently achieving a $10 CPA and your goal is a $5 CPA, we recommend setting an $8 CPA target (80% of $10) and scaling down from there gradually rather than jumping directly to $5.
Day Parting	Select specific days of the week and specific times of the day for your ads to serve. Day Parting is useful when you know that your ads will have a greater impact on certain days of the week or times of the day. Learn more about Day Parting here.	By default, Day Parting is set as automatically run 24/7. We recommend that you use the default Day Parting Campaign settings to let BidIQ® dynamically optimize how many times your ads appear to the same person.
Frequency Capping	The number of times your ads are displayed to the same person in one day. By default, your Frequency Caps are automatically optimized by BidIQ®, which processes 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. Learn more about Frequency Capping here.	By default, your Frequency Caps are automatically optimized by BidIQ®, AdRoll's proprietary real-time bidding algorithm. We strongly recommend that you use the default Frequency Capping Campaign settings to let BidIQ® dynamically optimize how many times your ads appear to the same person.
Campaign-specific placement Exclusions	If you don't want your ads to appear on certain websites you have the option to configure App and Domain exclusions at the campaign level to control the placements where your ads served. Campaign-specific exclusions are applied in addition to any configured General Exclusions. Learn more about campaign-specific placement exclusions here.	By default, the campaigns will target all placements. If you wish to restrict the ads on certain placements, you can exclude them by Domain or App. We do not recommend exceeding 1000 exclusions to ensure campaign scale and reach.
Environment Exclusions	This setting can be applied at the AdGroup level. You can select which targeting environments to include or exclude: Desktop: Larger screen real estate for more detailed ad content and different user behavior and intent compared to mobile platforms. Mobile Web: Broader reach across various websites and lower barrier to entry and often more budget-friendly. Excellent for brand awareness campaigns and contextual targeting. Mobile Apps: Immersive ad formats like interstitials. Learn more about Environments here.	By default, we will serve ads on all environments. If you restrict the environments where we serve ads this will impact your campaign reach, costs and performance.

Setting

Description

Recommendations

Campaign Budget

You can set up your campaign budget as Daily or Monthly based on your preferences. 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 amount of days remaining in the month.

Learn more about budget settings here.

Don't worry about overspending. As long as your budget remains unchanged for an entire month, you won't be charged more than your set daily budget multiplied by the average number of days in a month (30.4)

Be aware that if you change your daily budget before the end of the month, it will restart your 30.4-day budget cap.

Bid Strategy

Setting a Campaign goal helps AdRoll prioritize bids:

Conversions: Focus on those most likely to convert with your Conversion Audiences.
Clicks: Enhance traffic by maximizing clicks.
Impressions: Boost the number of ad displays.

Learn more about here.

Avoid restrictive CPA, CPC, or CPM targets that can limit ad delivery. We recommend that you gradually reduce your target by no more than 20% per edit. For example, if your campaign is currently achieving a $10 CPA and your goal is a $5 CPA, we recommend setting an $8 CPA target (80% of $10) and scaling down from there gradually rather than jumping directly to $5.

Day Parting

Select specific days of the week and specific times of the day for your ads to serve.

Day Parting is useful when you know that your ads will have a greater impact on certain days of the week or times of the day.

Learn more about Day Parting here.

By default, Day Parting is set as automatically run 24/7.

We recommend that you use the default Day Parting Campaign settings to let BidIQ® dynamically optimize how many times your ads appear to the same person.

Frequency Capping

The number of times your ads are displayed to the same person in one day. By default, your Frequency Caps are automatically optimized by BidIQ®, which processes 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.

Learn more about Frequency Capping here.

By default, your Frequency Caps are automatically optimized by BidIQ®, AdRoll's proprietary real-time bidding algorithm.

We strongly recommend that you use the default Frequency Capping Campaign settings to let BidIQ® dynamically optimize how many times your ads appear to the same person.

Campaign-specific placement Exclusions

If you don't want your ads to appear on certain websites you have the option to configure App and Domain exclusions at the campaign level to control the placements where your ads served.

Campaign-specific exclusions are applied in addition to any configured General Exclusions.

Learn more about campaign-specific placement exclusions here.

By default, the campaigns will target all placements. If you wish to restrict the ads on certain placements, you can exclude them by Domain or App.

We do not recommend exceeding 1000 exclusions to ensure campaign scale and reach.

Environment Exclusions

This setting can be applied at the AdGroup level. You can select which targeting environments to include or exclude:

Desktop: Larger screen real estate for more detailed ad content and different user behavior and intent compared to mobile platforms.
Mobile Web: Broader reach across various websites and lower barrier to entry and often more budget-friendly. Excellent for brand awareness campaigns and contextual targeting.
Mobile Apps: Immersive ad formats like interstitials.

Learn more about Environments here.

By default, we will serve ads on all environments. If you restrict the environments where we serve ads this will impact your campaign reach, costs and performance.