Smart Audience

What it is

Smart Audience is an AI-powered audience expansion feature that automatically kicks in when your ad group struggles to deliver the budget. It uses machine learning to find and reach additional users who behave similarly to your selected audience segments without changing your original targeting. Rather than guessing who to expand to, Smart Audience leverages DPG Media’s extensive first-party data and contextual signals to build intelligent look-alikes in real time. 

How it works

Smart Audience monitors your ad groups delivery closely. When it detects that delivery is falling short, it automatically starts expanding your audience(s). Smart Audience will always prioritize your originally selected audience. It only steps in with Audience Expansion when the system identifies that your ad group isn’t on track to spend its full budget. The expansion is dynamic and continuous. If delivery recovers, Smart Audience automatically scales back the expansion.

Smart Audience may expand with look-alikes using variables within the DPG Media network like:

• Similar on-site behavioral signals (e.g. reading habits)

• Matching contextual behavior (e.g. page content and context)

• Shared characteristics from first-party data (e.g. similar interest clusters, sociodemographic insights, location)

Setup instructions

Smart Audience is automatically enabled for all Seamless Ad Groups when Smart Optimization is active and when your selected audience includes segments from Detailed Targeting.

Note: Smart Audience is not compatible with Contextual Targeting segments — but it does use contextual signals to expand your selected audience to relevant matching page context.

Smart Audience can always be manually turned off per ad group.

Behavior notes

• Original targeting is always preserved
  Smart Audience only expands your selected audience — it never replaces it. Expansion is triggered only when budget delivery is at risk of falling short.

• Dynamic scaling
  Smart Audience continuously adjusts its scope based on real-time pacing: expanding when delivery is low, scaling back when delivery is on track.

• Strict adherence to age, gender and location
  Smart Audience never expands beyond the age, gender, or location filters you’ve set. These remain prioritized at all times.

• Strict Brand Suitability adherence
  Smart Audience will never expand delivery beyond the Brand Suitability restrictions you've set. These always remain fully enforced.

• Contextual Targeting limitations
  Smart Audience does not expand contextual targeting segments. However, it does leverage contextual signals to guide expansion when other audience segments are in use.

• Datalab compatibility
  Smart Audience is not available on Datalab audiences. To expand CRM-based Datalab audiences, use the built-in look-alike functionality within the Datalab by DPG Media platform and push the audience to the Ad Manager platform

• Reporting limitations
  It is currently not possible to isolate or report on the share of impressions delivered through Smart Audience expansion

Final Note

As a best practice, we recommend keeping Smart Audience enabled — unless your campaign has strict audience delivery requirements. Because it never overrides age, gender, or location filters, Smart Audience acts as a powerful safety net: stepping in only when needed, to ensure your campaign delivers without compromising quality.

Combined with Smart Optimization, it offers a compelling blend of automation, performance, and scale.

FAQs

“How does Smart Audience work together with Smart Optimization?”
Smart Audience is only available when Smart Optimization is enabled. They work together in continuous dialogue, finding the optimum in delivery and performance for each ad group to ensure outcomes are maximized.

“Is Smart Audience better than manually expanding my audience?”
The advantage of Smart Audience is that it stays close to the original audience input by using smart look-alikes that search for similar patterns in user behaviour and page context — and only at the moments when your ad group is in need of extra delivery. This automated approach to audience expansion removes the manual hassle of continuously tweaking audience targeting to ensure full delivery, opening up valuable time to spend elsewhere.

“Can I use Smart Audience for branding campaigns?”
Yes. Smart Audience supports all campaign goals: Awareness, Engagement, and Action.

“Will Smart Audience override my manually selected audiences?”
No. Your manually selected audiences always have priority. Smart Audience only expands delivery when needed and never overrides core selections.

“Smart Audience is enabled, but my delivery is still low — what should I do?”

If underdelivery continues for two or more days despite Smart Audience being on, consider loosening location, age, gender or detailed targeting (if campaign guidelines allow), expanding inventory or frequency capping, or adding additional Seamless Ad formats. Still underdelivering? Reach out to your Platform Success contact through the Support portal.

“Can I see which impressions came from my original audience vs Smart Audience expansion?”
No. At this time, it’s not possible to isolate or report on Smart Audience expansion within the ad group.

“How do I know if Smart Audience is helping my campaign?”
Monitor your campaign’s core KPIs. If your ad group is performing and delivering well, Smart Audience and Smart Optimization are contributing. To measure impact more precisely, you can run an A/B test: one ad group with Smart Audience enabled, one with it disabled.

“What’s the difference between Datalab look-alike audiences and Smart Audience?”
Both use the same underlying AI-models for generating look-alikes. The key difference: Datalab look-alike audiences are manually generated, standalone audience segments. Smart Audience, on the other hand, creates look-alikes automatically based on your selected audience(s) and dynamically expands reach in real-time depending on ad group delivery.

“Can I use Smart Audience with CRM-based audiences from Datalab?”
No. Currently Smart Audience can’t be used with Datalab audiences. To create CRM-based look-alikes, use the Look-alike feature in the Datalab platform and connect your seat with Ad Manager to push the audience(s).

“Can I use Smart Audience without Smart Optimization?”
No. Smart Audience and Smart Optimization are tightly integrated. Smart Audience only works when Smart Optimization is enabled.

“What happens if I duplicate an ad group with Smart Audience enabled?”
Smart Audience will remain enabled, but will recalibrate based on the delivery signals of the duplicated ad group. Previous delivery history does not carry over.

“My ad group is underdelivering, should I enable Smart Audience?”
Yes. For Seamless Ad Groups using Smart Optimization, enabling Smart Audience is a highly recommended first step to address underdelivery. It offers a low-effort solution that respects your original targeting while increasing reach where needed.