Upcoming changes to targeting expansion in Display & Video 360 API

On November 7, 2022, optimized targeting will gradually begin replacing targeting expansion for display, video, and audio line items under a Display & Video 360 partner, with the new feature launched for all partners by November 9, 2022. We will be making changes to the Display & Video 360 API to reflect this. These changes may impact the existing configurations of your resources, and the behavior for your currently successful requests.

Read the optimized targeting and targeting expansion guides to understand the differences between optimized targeting and targeting expansion. Optimized targeting is not available for over-the-top line items, or line items that use fixed bidding.

There will be no structural changes to the existing targetingExpansion field or TargetingExpansionConfig object in Display & Video 360 API LineItem resources. Once optimized targeting replaces targeting expansion for your partner, these fields will be used to manage optimized targeting in the following manner:

• The targetingExpansionLevel field will only support two possible values:
  • NO_EXPANSION: optimized targeting is off
  • LEAST_EXPANSION: optimized targeting is on
• NO_EXPANSION will be the default value for the targetingExpansionLevel field and will be automatically assigned if you do not set the field
• If you set targetingExpansionLevel to one of the following values, it will automatically be reset to LEAST_EXPANSION:
  • SOME_EXPANSION
  • BALANCED_EXPANSION
  • MORE_EXPANSION
  • MOST_EXPANSION
• excludeFirstPartyAudience will continue to set whether first-party audiences should be excluded from targeting. This will now apply to optimized targeting instead of targeting expansion.
• If you turn on optimized targeting for an ineligible line item, the request will not return an error and the change will persist. However, you must update the line item to be eligible before it will use optimized targeting when serving.
• Optimized targeting will not automatically be turned on for eligible line items created or updated by the Display & Video 360 API.

We will also be updating the configurations of existing line items as follows:

• The targetingExpansionLevel and excludeFirstPartyAudience fields for existing line items will be set to NO_EXPANSION and false, respectively, if one of the following applies:
  • It is an over-the-top line item
  • The line item uses fixed bidding
  • targetingExpansionLevel is already set to NO_EXPANSION
  • targetingExpansionLevel is unset
• For all other line items, the targetingExpansionLevel field will be set to LEAST_EXPANSION and excludeFirstPartyAudience will remain unchanged.

To prepare for this change, it is recommended that you turn on automated bidding for line items currently using fixed bidding with targeting expansion before November 7, 2022 to continue using audience expansion to improve campaign performance.

If you have questions regarding these changes or need help with these new features, please contact us using our support contact form.
- Trevor Mulchay, Display & Video 360 API Team