Personalize your message with dynamic rules

Dynamic rules personalize your creative message for the right person at the right time. Adding dynamic rules is optional. If you don't add any rules, Display & Video 360 shows the variant that's most likely to be clicked when the creative is served.

Get started

  1. Open a data-driven creative, then click Dynamic rules. If the creative doesn't have a Dynamic rules tab, it's not a creative type that supports dynamic rules.
  2. Click Get started or Add priority group to begin personalizing your creative for different audience segments.
  3. Click the type of signal you want to add.

Add a signal

An audience segment is a subgroup of your preferred audience, grouped by characteristics like geography, timing, or interests. You can create up to 200 audience segments per data-driven creative and assign each to a unique variant.

A signal is an audience, context, or specific condition that defines your audience segment. With data-driven creative, you can show a personalized creative message to each audience segment.

Add your first signal

  1. Click Add priority group.
  2. Click the type of signal you want to add. Select one or more signals to define your audience segments. Each signal is added to the dynamic feed as a unique audience segment. Learn about the available signal types below.

Add other signals

  1. Click Add signal in the priority group you created above, or click Add signal Add in the panel on the right.
  2. Click the type of signal you want to add. Learn about the available signal types below.
  3. Add more signals to define the people and conditions you'll use to show each of the variants in the Ad Canvas.

When you add signals from only one signal type (for example, location), each signal becomes a unique audience segment in the dynamic feed.

If you add signals from more than one signal type, each signal is added to all previous audience segments. (In the example below, two audiences were added first, then three locations.)

About signal types

  Audience lists

Add an audience list signal to create a rule based on an advertiser's first-party audiences, or affinity and in-market audiences created by Google. Keep in mind that the line item you assign your creative to must target the audience list. Otherwise the rule won't match.

  1. Select the type of audience list you want to use from the Audience type menu.
  2. Select an audience list. To find the audience list you are looking for, search for the audience by keyword or audience ID.
  3. After you select a list, it‘s added to the “Selected audience” panel on the right.
  4. Click Done. Each list is added as a row in the dynamic feed. 
You can use more than one type of audience at the same time. To add a different audience type, select a different type from the Audience type menu.

  Categories

Add a category signal if you want to segment by market verticals and publisher page content categories. For example, “Arts & Entertainment“ or “Travel“. Category signals help you simplify your line item setup. You can target broad categories with your line item, then use a data-driven creative with variants for each subcategory. You can also use category signals to select the most contextual creative when you can't use audience lists.
  1. Select the categories or subcategories you want to use.
    • To view the subcategories beneath a category, click Expand . To hide subcategories, next to the top-level category, click Collapse . 
    • To narrow the list of categories, you can enter words to filter by, for example, “Computers”. The list is filtered to show only relevant categories and subcategories.
  2. You can choose to segment on the broad top-level categories, or you can create and assign personalized variants to smaller subcategories.
    • When you select a broad category, all subcategories in it are grouped as one row that you can assign a variant to, and it'll have a selected checkbox .​​
    • When you select a subcategory, the broad category that it belongs to can't be added as a separate row, and has a subset icon . For example, if you select “Architecture” you can’t select “Visual Art & Design” or “Arts & Entertainment” as separate segments.
    • If you select a broad category, then expand it and select one of its subcategories, the broad category is replaced with the subcategory.
  3. After you select a category, it‘s added to the “Selected categories” panel on the right.
  4. Click Done. Each category or subcategory is added as a row in the dynamic feed.

  Location

Add a location signal to segment by countries, states, cities, or zip codes.

  1. To select a location, enter a keyword into the search box, then select a location from the list.
  2. After you select a location, it‘s added to the “Selected locations” panel on the right.
  3. Click Done. Each location is added as a row in the dynamic feed.

  Schedule

Add a schedule signal to segment by specific dates and times.

  1. Select the type of time zone you want to use.
    • Local: The time zone of the person viewing the ad, based on IP address (if allowed).
    • Standard: The time zone of the person setting up the signal in Display & Video 360 (your own time zone).
  2. Set the starting date and time.
  3. After the "to", set the ending date and time. Or, if you want the scheduled segment to be eligible for any time after the starting date and time, leave the end date and time empty.
  4. (Optional) Add more scheduled segments by clicking Add segment. Date and time segments are allowed to overlap.
  5. Click Done. Each schedule is added as a row in the dynamic feed.

  Line item

Add a line item signal to show variants only when a specific line item buys the impression. To take advantage of this feature, your media buying partner should assign your data-driven creative to many different line items.

  1. To find a line item, you can search by the line item's name or ID. Search results include all active or paused line items within your advertiser.
  2. After you select a line item, it‘s added to the “Selected line items” panel on the right.
  3. Click Done. Each line item is added as a row in the dynamic feed.

You can't combine a line item signal with any other signals within the same prioritized group. But you can add more than one prioritized group (some using the line item signal, and others using audience lists, location, and schedule). When you have more than one prioritized group, put the more granular signals at the top of the list so that all rules to have a chance to serve.

Put line item targeting in its own priority group

About the dynamic feed

A dynamic feed is a spreadsheet that defines which creative variants to show to each of your audience segments. The dynamic feed has rows and columns. Each signal type you choose adds a column in the feed, and each specific audience segment adds a row. Dynamic rules are defined by assigning one or more creative variants to an audience segment.

Example dynamic rule logic

IF <signal in column 1> IS TRUE
AND <signal in column 2> IS TRUE
AND <signal in column 3> IS TRUE
THEN SHOW assigned variants

To more easily review and edit your prioritized groups, zoom out using your browser’s zoom settings.

Remove an audience segment

To remove an audience segment from your feed, select the checkbox beside it, then click Delete in the action toolbar.

Edit or remove signals

Each signal you add appears in the panel on the right. To quickly edit your selections, you can:

  • Remove a signal by clicking Remove Remove.
  • Edit all signals of one type by clicking Edit Edit next to the signal type name. (For example, to edit all location signals, hover over Location, then click Edit Edit.)
  • Delete all signals of one type by clicking Delete Delete next to the signal type name. (For example, to delete all schedule signals, hover over Schedule, then click Delete Delete.)

Set priorities for rules

When you add rules to only one priority group, they all have the same priority. If you want to reach specific audiences with one message and show a different message to wider audiences, you can add more priority groups.

Priority groups are organized in priority order, from the top down. Eligible variants from higher priority groups will be selected first. By default, your priority groups will be named "Priority Group 1", "Priority Group 2", and so on. To keep track of your overall plan more easily, click on the name to edit it.

To add more priority groups, click Add priority group.

Change the order of priority groups

There are two ways to change the order of a priority group:

  • Drag the group name in the panel on the right.

  • Next to the group name, click More  , then click Move up or Move down.

Put groups with more signal types at the top

Because variants will always be selected in priority order, make sure that audience segments in higher priority groups aren't so broad that they prevent the rules in lower priority groups from ever matching.

In the example below, the "Audience and locations" priority group won't ever be selected because the audience segment in the "Audience list" priority group (that only uses the audience signal, Fashionistas) is always true. No matter which location signal is true in "Audiences and locations". To make this strategy work as intended, "Audience and locations" should be moved to the top.

The priority group for everyone else

A priority group called Everyone else is automatically created for you, and is always the lowest priority group in the dynamic feed. Signals cannot be added to this group. Assign a variant to Everyone else to make sure the data-driven creative will always have a variant to show to the consumer. This variant is also served to people who've opted out of personalized ads.

A quick and easy way to build a full funnel data-driven creative is to create a variant with a brand awareness message and assign it to Everyone else.

Assign a variant to a rule

To choose the variant to show for each audience segment, click Assign in each row the dynamic feed, including Everyone else. If more than one variant is added to a segment, all variants are eligible to serve. Learn how variants are selected at serving time

Before you can publish a data-driven creative, all variants must be assigned.

You can edit variants by clicking Edit Edit next to the variant name.

Assign more than one variant to optimize your creative

When you assign more than one variant to each rule, the variant most likely to be clicked is served.

Quick preview

To preview the variants assigned to rules in your dynamic feed, open the quick preview panel.

Open quick preview

  1. Deselect all rows in the dynamic feed. (If any rows are selected, the action toolbar will cover the quick preview button.)
  2. Click Show preview .
  3. Select the checkbox next to one or more rows to see a quick preview the assigned variants in a panel at the bottom.

Adjust zoom level

You can change the zoom level of the quick preview using the zoom percentage controls on the upper right side of the quick preview panel.

Close quick preview

  1. Deselect all rows in the dynamic feed. (If any rows are selected, the action toolbar hides the quick preview button.)
  2. Click Hide preview .

View and edit variant assets

After you assign a variant, asset columns are added to the dynamic feed. These columns are defined by the format, with each column matching the assets, text, and style elements shown in the asset panel of the Ad Canvas. These asset columns are collapsed by default.

In the Variant column header:

  • To view and edit assets, click Expand .
  • To hide assets, click Collapse .
When you edit an asset for a variant that's assigned to multiple rows, your changes apply to all rows that variant is assigned to.

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