Display network targeting: audiences, placements and topics

The Google Display Network lets you show ads on millions of websites, apps and on YouTube, outside the search results. But that enormous reach is only valuable if you narrow it down sharply. So the question is not “how many people can I reach”, but “who do I want to reach and in what context”. Targeting is exactly where that distinction gets made. In this guide we walk through the main display targeting options: audiences (in-market and custom), placements, topics and remarketing. And each time we look at what that means for a B2B company that wants customers, not clicks.

How targeting in the Display Network works

Targeting in Display revolves around two fundamentally different questions. The first: who is this person? That is what you use audiences for, based on interests, behaviour and purchase intent. The second: where is this ad? That is what you use placements and topics for, based on the content of the page where you appear.

That distinction matters, because it determines how predictable your result is. If you target a person with demonstrable purchase intent, you buy relevance through behaviour. If you target the context of a page, you buy relevance through subject. Both can work, but they demand a different way of thinking and measuring. The Display Network is one of the building blocks of SEA, but it behaves differently from search ads: here you do not capture an active search query, you interrupt someone who is busy with something else.

Audience targeting: in-market and custom segments

Audiences are the way you select people in Display based on who they are and what they do. For B2B, two types are especially interesting.

In-market segments are audiences that Google assembles from purchase behaviour: people who are currently actively researching a particular category of products or services. Think of “business software solutions” or “marketing services”. The signal is intent: these people show behaviour resembling that of buyers. For B2B that is attractive, because you are closer to the purchase stage than with pure interest groups. The caveat: the segments are broad and consumer-oriented, so you rarely hit exactly the niche decision-maker you are looking for. Use them as a starting point, not as a final destination.

Custom segments (formerly custom intent and custom affinity) give you far more control. You build an audience yourself by entering search terms, competitor URLs or relevant apps. Google then looks for people who behave as if they are interested in those terms or on those sites. For B2B this is usually the strongest audience option in Display: you translate your knowledge of the market (which terms your buyer types in, which trade publications and competitors they visit) directly into an audience. The more specific your input, the sharper the reach.

Alongside these there are affinity segments (people with long-term interests) and detailed demographics. For most B2B applications they are too broad to serve as primary targeting, but they can help to fine-tune a custom segment further.

Placements: choose where you appear yourself

With placements you flip the logic around. Instead of selecting a person, you select the page, app or YouTube channel on which your ad appears. You literally say: “show me on these specific websites”.

For B2B this is an underrated option. If you know the trade publications, industry sites and knowledge platforms where your decision-makers hang out, you can place your ads there in a targeted way. You accept a smaller reach in exchange for much higher contextual relevance. The downside is that it takes manual work: you have to know and compile the right sites, and your reach stays limited to what those placements yield in impressions.

In practice you often use placements in two directions. Positively, by deliberately choosing where you appear. And negatively, by working as an exclusion: if you run a broad audience campaign, you will want to exclude precisely those placements that yield nothing or do not fit your brand. Cleaning up placements is one of the most rewarding things you can do in a Display campaign.

Topics: targeting the theme of the page

Topic targeting sits between audiences and placements. You do not choose individual sites, but a theme, and Google shows your ad on pages about that subject. For example “business services”, “technology” or “finance”.

The advantage is scale with some relevance: you reach many pages within a theme at once, without having to choose each site separately. The downside is coarseness. A topic like “technology” is enormously broad and says little about the reader’s purchase intent. For B2B, topic targeting therefore rarely works as a standalone strategy. It is more usable as a context layer that you combine with an audience: show my ad to people from this custom segment, but only on pages within relevant topics. That combination narrows the reach towards the places that truly matter.

Remarketing: the most rewarding Display layer for B2B

The targeting option that often delivers the most for B2B is remarketing: you show ads to people who have already visited your site, viewed a page or watched your video. Here the relevance is highest, because these people already know your brand and showed interest.

In B2B with long sales cycles that is worth gold. Someone compares solutions for months before deciding. With remarketing in the Display Network you stay visible during that period, so that you are top of mind at the moment the inquiry does come. You can also combine remarketing lists with the other targeting forms, for example by approaching visitors of your service pages separately with a specific message. If you want to dig deeper into that distinction, read about remarketing versus retargeting.

What does this mean for B2B?

Our position at Customer Impact is consistent: a B2B company is not a web shop. The Display Network rarely delivers a stream of purchase-ready leads, and whoever judges it on cost-per-lead in the first week switches it off too quickly. The value lies further down the chain, in brand awareness and in keeping warm the people who will search themselves later.

If you rank the targeting options by their value for B2B, a clear order emerges: the warmer and more specific the audience, the higher the return.

In practical terms that means: use custom segments and remarketing as the backbone, deploy placements to steer sharply, and treat in-market and topics as broadeners that you have to watch closely. And tie everything back to real outcomes. In our approach, Display is an amplifying layer within a growth engine, not a standalone channel that you steer on clicks. The direct harvesting of demand belongs to search ads; you can read more about that in online advertising and in geographic targeting if you want to delimit your reach regionally.

Torn between this classic Display and the newer campaign form Google is putting in its place? First compare Demand Gen versus Display and which suits your funnel.

Want your targeting steered in the right direction by an experienced google ads specialist who links paid to pipeline rather than to vanity figures? Then we first check whether Display really is your bottleneck, or whether you would do better to harvest existing demand first.

How do you measure the return of display targeting?

This is where it often goes wrong. Display gets many impressions and relatively low click prices, so the surface figures look good. But impressions and clicks are not customers. Judge your targeting therefore on signals that fit the role of the channel:

• Rise in branded searches: are more people actively searching for your company after Display goes live?
• Contribution in your attribution: use a model that weighs earlier touchpoints, not just the last click.
• Quality of placements: where do you actually appear, and which placements yield nothing and should be excluded?
• Final pipeline and revenue: does the number of inquiries and their value move in the right direction over a longer period?

Without solid conversion measurement you do not know what your targeting really delivers, and you cannot assess the effect on your PPC results. In B2B with long cycles that means: judge Display over quarters, not over weeks.

Frequently asked questions about display targeting

What is the difference between in-market and custom segments?

In-market segments are ready-made audiences that Google assembles from purchase behaviour in a category. Custom segments you build yourself with search terms, competitor URLs and apps, which lets you target far more sharply. For B2B, custom segments are usually the strongest choice.

Is the Display Network suitable for direct lead generation?

Limited. Display is built for reach and visibility, not for directly bringing in purchase-ready leads. For direct inquiries, search ads are more suitable. Display works mainly as an amplifier at the top of the funnel and as a remarketing layer.

What is the difference between placements and topics?

With placements you choose the specific websites, apps or YouTube channels on which you appear. With topics you choose a theme, and Google determines which pages fall within that theme. Placements give more control, topics give more reach.

Which display targeting works best for B2B?

For most B2B companies, remarketing and custom segments deliver the most, because relevance is highest there. Placements help to steer sharply, while in-market and topics are broader and require tight monitoring.

Want to know which display targeting suits you?

The Display Network offers many targeting buttons, but more buttons does not automatically mean more customers. The art is choosing what fits where your growth really lies. We look along honestly: is demand creation or brand awareness your bottleneck, or is there still low-hanging fruit in harvesting existing demand?

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