Set up targeting
Workbench offers a range of targeting criteria such as demographics, geography, and contextual placement to ensure ads are delivered to those most likely to be interested in them. The following describe the targeting criteria available on Workbench:
Age
Specific age ranges available depend on the country selected. Include and Exclude options are available. For specific restrictions, see Campaign categories.
Note that “Unknown” is a data segment that hasn’t been associated with a specific range or grouping. For example, “18–20,” “21–24,” and so on. In order to target an “Unknown” age, at least one additional age range must also be targeted.
Apple News+ subscriber status
All Apple News readers, non-Apple News+ subscribers, or Apple News+ subscribers.
When targeting Apple News+ subscribers, you’ll only reach subscribers if they’ve turned on Personalized Ads on their device.
Note that this feature is only available to publishers participating in Apple News+.
Articles
Article ID is free-form text used to identify an article that you want to use for targeting. Include and Exclude options are available. The article ID is obtained by previewing the article in News Publisher. The article ID of an article is the path of the URL. This feature is available under Advanced Features.
In the following example, apple.news is the domain and Agkyw5MsBSCaJXr8T61fKmg is the path: https://apple.news/Agkyw5MsBSCaJXr8T61fKmg
Note that inventory forecasting is not available when booking lines with article ID targeting.
Audience Segments
Users who have shown explicit interest in your content on Apple News, including Channel, Subscription, and Notifications. Refer to Choose audience segments for additional details.
Channels and sections
Channels and sections of Apple News where you want your ads to display. Include and Exclude options are available. This feature is available under Advanced Features.
Device
The Apple device class available to target. Options include iPhone, iPad*, and Mac. See Ad Specs for details on supported devices.
*Note that iPad may include Apple Vision Pro devices. There is no separate targeting for Apple Vision Pro devices.
Gender
The gender you want to target (male, female, or both). This category includes unknown users and users who have opted out. Include and Exclude options are available.
Note that “Unknown” is a data segment that hasn’t been associated with a specific range or grouping. In order to target an “Unknown” gender, at least one gender must also be targeted.
Geography
The geographical area that this line should serve in. Include and Exclude options are available.
You can automatically target all locations for the country selected, or enter any number of geographical areas where the line should run (see chart below). Geotargeting options depend on the country selected (for example, for U.S., the city and zip code/postcode are available parameters). The following geo-level categories are supported:
| US | CA | UK | AU | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st level | Zip | - | - | Postcode |
| 2nd level | City | City | City | City |
| 3rd level | DMA | - | - | - |
| 4rd level |
State | Country/Crown Dependency | Province | State |
Searching the following keywords will list out all possible state and DMA values for selection.
| US | CA | UK | AU | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All States | state states |
state states crown crown dependencies |
state states province provinces |
state states |
| All DMAs | dma dmas |
- | - | - |
Issues
Issue ID is free-form text corresponding to the magazine issue that you want to use for targeting. Include and Exclude options are available. The Issue ID is obtained by previewing the article in News Publisher. The Issue ID of an article is the path of the URL. In the following example, apple.news is the domain and IXON4qkAbRyCVtRPmyX7gzQ is the path: https://apple.news/IXON4qkAbRyCVtRPmyX7gzQ
Key value pairs (both inclusion and exclusion)
Apple News Format content that has been marked up using metadata properties. Include and Exclude options are available. You can enter multiple key value pairs for targeting. This feature is available under Advanced Features.
When using multiple key value pairs, the following rules apply:
- If you select “and,” only articles that match all of the key value pairs entered will run the line.
- If you select “or," any article that has one or more of the key value pairs that you entered will run the line.
-
The accepted characters for specifying key value pairs are:
A-Z : uppercase A to Z
a-z : lowercase a to z
0-9 : numeric value
- : hyphen or minus sign
_ : underscore
<blank space> : blank space
OS Version
The supported iOS versions available to target, including iPadOS. By default, all supported iOS versions (iOS 10.3 and iPadOS 13 and later) are selected. Optionally, you can select specific iOS releases down to the dot release level, and you can also select “Automatically target all future iOS and iPadOS versions” for any dot release versions selected.
Scheduling
The days and times that ads should appear to users, based on a user’s local time.
Campaign flight dates and times are in UTC/GMT by default. Time zones can be edited for each campaign during campaign setup.
You can adjust the default campaign time zone for your organization within account settings on Workbench.
Sensitive Topics
For additional brand safety, sensitive topics can be excluded at the line level. When using this feature, you can exclude any sensitive topics that haven’t yet been excluded at the channel level in your Ad Settings.
When you exclude sensitive topics, your ad will not appear in news tagged with the topics. By default, your line settings reflect the current ad settings for your channel(s).
The following conditions exist with line-level settings:
- Topics that have been excluded at the channel level cannot be included at the line level.
- If your line includes multiple channels with different opt-in/opt-out settings, the line will only include sensitive topics that are included at the channel level.
- If you change channel-level settings after you create the line, the relevant sensitive topics may no longer be included in the line targeting.
Personalized Ads
If a user has turned on Personalized Ads on their device, Apple’s advertising platform may use their information to serve ads that are more relevant to them. Turning off Personalized Ads will prevent Apple from using this information for ad targeting. That means ads can’t be targeted based on age, geography, gender, or information about content preferences, purchases, downloads, or subscriptions.
Canada language compliance
For any backfill ads served in French articles and French Today feeds, based on Apple Accounts that are registered in Quebec, resellers must provide a French language version of any ads running. Resellers will select the content language that the ad will serve into (French, English, Both) and then in the ad selection, tag creative French or English, and the platform will serve according to the device language preference. Selecting both languages allows non-Quebec users to receive ads in either English or French.