Domain Targeting Lists: Control Where Your Ads Appear

Domain targeting lists give you precise control over which websites and domains serve your ads. By curating allowlists and blocklists at the advertiser level, you ensure every campaign under that advertiser inherits a consistent brand safety and performance strategy — without configuring domains on each line item individually.

Why Domain Targeting Lists Matter

Without domain-level control, your ads compete for impressions across the entire open exchange — including low-quality sites that waste budget and dilute brand perception. Domain targeting lists solve this by letting you:

• Protect your brand — blocklist sites that conflict with your brand values, competitors, or content policies.
• Maximise performance — allowlist high-performing domains where your audience engages most.
• Control costs — adjust bid multipliers per domain to bid higher on premium inventory and lower on less valuable placements.
• Scale consistently — create a list once and apply it across every line item under the same advertiser.

Key Concepts

Advertiser-Level Asset

Domain targeting lists are created and stored at the advertiser level. Once created, a list is available to every campaign and line item belonging to that advertiser. This means you build your domain strategy once and reuse it wherever needed.

Allowlist vs Blocklist

Every domain list is one of two types:

A global blocklist template is also applied automatically alongside your selection for additional protection.

Bid Multiplier

Each domain in a list carries a bid multiplier (range: 0.1× to 10.0×, default: 1.0×). The multiplier adjusts your line item's base bid price for that specific domain:

• 1.0× — bid at the standard rate.
• 1.5× — bid 50 % higher on this domain (prioritise winning impressions on a high-value site).
• 0.5× — bid 50 % lower (still eligible, but spend less on a lower-priority domain).

This lets you weight your budget toward the placements that matter most without creating separate line items.

Creating a Domain Targeting List

Navigate to Advertiser > Targeting Lists and click Create Targeting List, then select Domain List.

Step 1: Name and List Type

Step 2: Build Your Domain Collection

The creation form provides two complementary methods side by side. You can use both — domains from either method are merged into a single list.

Smart Domain Generator (Left Panel)

The built-in Domain Query tool discovers relevant domains from ad:personam's curated database. This is the fastest way to populate a high-quality list.

1. Select a Country — choose the geographic market you are targeting (e.g., Germany, United States, United Kingdom).
2. Select a Media Type — choose Banner or Video to filter by ad format availability.
3. Select a Category (optional) — narrow results by content vertical (e.g., News, Sports, Technology).
4. Click Search Domains to retrieve a curated list of domains matching your criteria.

Results are filtered using country-specific matching — for example, German domains are matched by .de TLDs, de. subdomains, and /de paths. The system currently supports filtering for: Germany, Italy, United Kingdom, France, Netherlands, Poland, Finland, Switzerland, United States, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and Ireland.

From the results you can:

• Select individual domains by checking them, or Select All to include every result.
• Click Add Selected to Domain List (or Add All) to push them to your list.

Manual Input and CSV Upload (Right Panel)

Add domains directly by typing or pasting, or upload a file:

• Textarea — enter one domain per line. Optionally include a bid multiplier separated by a comma: example.com,1.5.
• CSV / TXT Upload — drag and drop or browse for a file (max 10,000 domains, 5 MB). Expected format: domain,bidMultiplier with an optional header row.

The system automatically validates domain formats, removes duplicates, and applies a default bid multiplier of 1.0 where none is specified.

Step 3: Review and Configure Bid Multipliers

Before submitting, review your complete domain collection in the list panel. You can:

• Remove individual domains.
• Adjust bid multipliers per domain (0.1–10.0).
• See the total domain count updated in real time.

Step 4: Submit

Click Create List to save. The list is immediately available for use across all campaigns and line items under the current advertiser.

Note: Domain targeting lists cannot be edited after creation. To update a list, delete the existing one and create a new version.

Applying a Domain List to a Line Item

There are two ways to apply a domain targeting list:

From the Targeting Lists Table

1. Navigate to Advertiser > Targeting Lists.
2. Find the domain list you want to apply and click the Apply action (table icon).
3. In the dialog, select a Campaign and then a Line Item within that campaign.
4. Click Apply to attach the list.

During Line Item Creation or Editing

In the Line Item setup wizard at Step 5: Brand Safety, select a domain targeting list from the dropdown under Domain Targeting List. The list is applied when you submit the line item. See the Campaign Setup Guide for the full setup flow.

Important: Applying a domain targeting list is a full replacement operation — it overwrites any existing domain targeting on that line item.

Standalone Domain Discovery

The Domain Query tool used in list creation is also available as a standalone research tool at Media Planner > Domain Discovery. Use it to explore domain inventory across markets before building your lists. See Domain Discovery Tool for details.

Best Practices

• Start with an allowlist for premium campaigns — restricting delivery to vetted domains guarantees brand safety at the cost of scale.
• Use blocklists for broad reach campaigns — maintain wide reach while filtering out known low-quality or off-brand sites.
• Layer bid multipliers strategically — bid higher on your top-performing domains and lower on marginal ones instead of excluding them entirely.
• Name lists descriptively — include the market, purpose, and type in the name (e.g., "UK Premium News — Allowlist") so your team can identify them quickly.
• Refresh lists regularly — domain inventory changes over time. Recreate lists periodically to ensure you are targeting current, active domains.