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What is Targeting?

Targeting is a feature that allows ads to be displayed only to specific users or on specific content. For example, you can show baby product ads only to parents in their 20s and 30s, or show sports brand ads only on sports article pages. Through targeting, advertisers can precisely reach their desired customers, and publishers can create premium ad products by leveraging their data.

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Why is Targeting Important?

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It’s Time to Monetize Your Data

The data that publishers possess is a valuable asset in itself. You can increase advertising revenue by turning existing data such as member information, behavioral data, and content classification into targeting products.

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The Difference Targeting Makes

Selling Without Targeting:
  • All ads are sold at the same CPM.
  • Advertisers don’t know if they reached their desired customers.
  • The value of the publisher’s data is not reflected in pricing.
Leveraging Targeting:
  • Apply premium rates to premium audiences for higher pricing.
  • Provide advertisers with clear targeting options to improve ad effectiveness.
  • Turn your data into differentiated ad products to gain competitive advantage.

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Real-World Examples

Created “Parents within 6 months postpartum” targeting and sells to baby formula and diaper brands at a 40% premium over base CPM.
By providing context targeting for finance, real estate, and automotive categories, they achieved high repurchase rates from advertisers in related industries.

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Audience Targeting

Display ads to specific users based on user attribute data.

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Data Source

Uses User Properties and Events. Properties are user attribute information, while events are user behavioral data such as purchases and adding to cart. Basic fields such as country, language, gender, and age are provided, and publishers can add custom fields as needed.

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Hierarchy Structure

Targeting is created in the following order.
1

Property / Event

Attribute data such as age, gender, interests and behavioral data such as purchases, adding to cart
2

Targeting Option

Segments created by applying conditions to properties
3

Targeting

Collection of related targeting options
Properties are source data such as age, gender, interests, region of residence, and membership tier. Events are behavioral data representing actions users have performed, such as purchases, adding to cart, sign-ups, and inquiry completions. Targeting options are segments created by applying conditions to properties and events. For example, “Women in their 20s” is a targeting option combining the conditions of age 20-29 and female gender. “Users with Purchase History” is a targeting option using the Purchase event condition. Targeting is a collection of related targeting options. The “Demographics” targeting includes targeting options like women in their 20s, men in their 20s, women in their 30s, and men in their 30s. Advertisers select the options they want within the targeting. Option groups let you group multiple targeting options into one. If you group women in their 20s and men in their 20s, they become a single targeting option called ”20s”. Advertisers can’t select grouped sub-options individually, so they can only select the ”20s” option.

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Example: Demographics Targeting

Before grouping options Advertiser selection options: Women in their 20s, Men in their 20s, Women in their 30s, Men in their 30s After grouping options
  • 20s = Women in their 20s + Men in their 20s
  • 30s = Women in their 30s + Men in their 30s
Advertiser selection options: 20s, 30s

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Usage Scenarios

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Context Targeting

Display ads on specific pages or content based on content attributes.

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Data Source

Uses Context ID passed during ad requests. Context ID is a value representing the context of the page the user is currently viewing, defined by the publisher and passed through the SDK. For example, if a user is viewing a sneaker product page in a commerce app, you can pass a context ID like “shoes” or “sports_shoes”.
Context targeting applies only to banner and native ad requests that include a Context ID (banner and native ads in the Android and iOS SDKs, the Web SDK, and the REST API). Interstitial, rewarded, popup, and splash ads, as well as the Flutter and React Native SDKs, do not send a Context ID. If an ad product that contains these placements uses context targeting, campaigns that include context options are not shown in those placements, and context exclusions are not applied there.

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Hierarchy Structure

Targeting is created in the following order.
1

Context

Page context information defined by the publisher
2

Targeting Option

Segments combining context IDs
3

Targeting

Collection of related targeting options
Context is page context information defined by the publisher. You can freely define product categories, search keywords, page types, etc. Targeting options are segments created by combining specific context IDs. For example, the “Shoes” targeting option can be configured to include context IDs such as shoes, sneakers, boots, etc. Targeting is a collection of related targeting options. The “Product Category” targeting includes options like shoes, clothing, bags, and accessories. Option groups let you group multiple targeting options into one. If you group clothing and accessories, they become a single option called “Fashion Apparel”. With Show sub-options to advertisers turned on, advertisers can also select each sub-option individually.

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Example: Commerce App Product Category Targeting

Before grouping options Advertiser selection options: Shoes, Clothing, Bags, Accessories After grouping options
  • Fashion Apparel = Clothing + Accessories
Advertiser selection options: Shoes, Bags, Fashion Apparel

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Usage Scenarios

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Connecting Targeting to Ad Products

Set how to connect targeting when creating ad products.

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Visible Targeting

Targeting options that advertisers can select during campaign booking. Only options selected here are visible to advertisers. Example: If you set only 20s and 30s as visible targeting from the “Demographics” targeting options of 20s, 30s, and 40s, advertisers can only select 20s and 30s.

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Required Targeting

Targeting options that are automatically applied to every campaign booked with the product. Advertisers cannot remove them. Required targeting has two settings: Include and Exclude. If an advertiser also selects optional options in the same targeting, they are combined with the Required Include options using OR, which widens the audience. To serve only to specific options, do not expose other options of the same targeting for advertisers to select.
If a context targeting has a Required Include or Required Exclude setting, no other context targeting can be exposed in the same ad product. Advertisers can choose include or exclude options in only one context targeting.

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Premium Rate Setting

You can set a premium rate for each targeting to apply premium pricing. If a campaign includes or excludes any option of that targeting, the premium rate is added to the base price once. This also applies to Required Include and Required Exclude options and to options the advertiser excludes, so the premium rate of a targeting with Required Include or Required Exclude options applies to every campaign of the product. Example: Base price 10,000 won, 20% premium rate → 12,000 won

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Precautions

  • Impact on live campaigns: Structural changes such as deleting, grouping, or renaming options are applied to live campaigns as soon as you save, which may affect performance.
  • When changes take effect: Condition changes and new options in audience targeting are applied after the next hourly audience update, so this can take more than an hour. In context targeting, Context ID changes and adding or grouping options can also take some time to be reflected in ad serving.
  • Deleting In Use options: You can delete options that are In Use. When you do, they are immediately removed from the targeting of live campaigns. If all options a campaign included in that targeting are deleted, the campaign is served without that targeting condition, so check the affected campaigns before deleting.
  • Impact of modifying targeting included in products: Targeting settings may be affected, so you must recheck the targeting settings of the product.
  • Audience size update delay: For audience targeting, the audience size shown in the console after a change is updated up to 1 hour later.

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Table of Contents

  1. ⚡ Quickstart: Selling Your First Targeting
  2. Properties
  3. Events
  4. Creating Audience Targeting
  1. Creating Context Targeting
  2. Selling Targeting
  3. Managing Targeting
  4. Category Rules Detailed Guide

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FAQ

You can generate higher revenue from the same ad inventory. Apply premium rates to premium audiences and provide advertisers with clear targeting options to improve ad effectiveness. Turn your data into differentiated ad products to gain competitive advantage.
Evaluate based on “Can this data help advertisers find their desired customers?” For example, “Months postpartum” for parenting apps is valuable targeting for baby formula and diaper brands, and “Asset size” for finance apps is valuable targeting for premium financial product advertisers. Consider whether it’s data advertisers would willingly pay a premium for.
Choose based on the type of data you have. If you have rich user attribute data like member information and behavioral data, audience targeting is suitable. If you have a well-structured content classification system, context targeting is effective.
Consider the scarcity of the audience and ad effectiveness. Valuable segments like “High-income earners” and “VIP members” can have higher premium rates. You can also adjust based on market response.