How to See which Websites Show Your Google Display Ads

The Google AdWords Display Network is the largest and most visited website group on the internet. In fact, the Display Network has the ability to reach 90% of Internet users worldwide and includes more than 2 million publisher sites.

Some examples of Google AdWords Display Network websites:

The Google Display Network: The group of websites that serve Google AdWords display ads. There are more than a million websites and apps where your ads can show. — The AdWords Glossary

Obviously, the reach of Google’s Display Network provides massive potential for your business — it allows you get your business in front of an incredibly diverse user-base across all types of mediums. That said, casting too wide of a net can have what fisherman called by-catch. By-catch occurs when you catch something you weren’t looking for. The same terminology applies to the AdWords Display Network: sometimes the net you cast attracts certain audiences for the wrong reasons.

Some of our most frequently asked AdWords Display questions:

• Which websites show my display ads?
• What display network websites perform the best?
• How do I even set up a display ad?
• How do I stop my ad from showing on a certain website?

Just like the Search Terms Report, which shows you what keywords are triggering your ads, the Display Network Placements tab tells you not only which high-level domains (websites) are displaying your ads, but also how your ad is doing on each site. We specify “high-level domains” because your ad may show on a number of subdomains or pages within the high-level parent domain. For the exact pages, follow this tutorial or check out the quick 1 minute video below!

Access your Placements Report

• Click into your display campaign
• Select “Display Network” Tab
• Select “Placements”: This will give you all the high-level domains showing your ad

See exactly which pages (URL by URL) show your ads

No matter how precisely you set your display targeting, it’s important to know exactly where your ads are showing and how your ads are performing on different sites. Perhaps your image doesn’t mesh well with the website. The WHY doesn’t necessarily matter — data doesn’t lie.

• Click “See Details” beneath the overview graph above the table
• Select “All”: This will give you a complete breakdown of all the URLs showing your ads along with all the metrics you would like to see for each such as clicks, impressions, CTR, CPC, Conversions, and more.

How to prevent certain URLs/Pages from showing your AdWords Ads

Just like excluding negative keywords, you want to use the placements reports to “exclude” certain websites from showing your ads. Look for placements with very high costs and no clicks. Then filter by CPA and CPC to remove outliers by following these steps:

• Click the checkbox to the left of the site you would like to exclude.
• You can select multiple by skimming through the list or sorting the table by a certain criterion you would like to quickly segment
• Select the “Edit”dropdown

• You can do a number of things here:
• Domain-specific bid adjustments
• Change where your ad takes your audience (landing page)
• Exclude the page on an Ad Group & Campaign level