Choosing Your Objective

Emily Truong

July 17, 2026 15:35

This documentation covers the New Ads Manager Experience (limited release starting July 15, 2026). If your dashboard looks different, please view [Creating a new Campaign / Ad Groups and Setting Targeting Goal] for support. Want early access to the new experience? Contact selfservehelp@groundtruth.com to upgrade your account.

Overview

Your ad group objective dictates how GroundTruth optimizes your ad delivery, manages your bidding strategy, and structures your reporting. Choosing the right objective ensures the system aligns its algorithms with your ultimate business outcome—whether that’s building awareness, driving consideration (engagement), or generating conversions.

Screenshot 2026-07-15 at 12.36.00 PM.png

Optimization Categories

The platform supports 3 distinct optimization categories:

Optimization Categories	Objectives
Awareness Focuses on maximizing reach and impression volume. Ideal for introducing your brand or product to entirely new audiences.	Reach: Deliver ads to the largest count of unique devices. Brand Awareness: Drive high brand recall, showing ads as much as possible.
Consideration Focuses on driving direct user engagement.	Ad Clicks: Maximize link clicks and drive traffic to your website or app. Video Views: Build brand or product interest through qualified video plays. Audio Plays: Maximize audio playback through completed ad listens.
Conversion Tailored for measurable, real-world outcomes.	In-Store Visits: Drive physical visits and foot traffic to brick-and-mortar locations.

⚠️ Important: Your objective choice impacts your optimization algorithm, available targeting options, and reporting metrics. Please note that once the ad group starts spending, the objective can no longer be changed.

Step-by-Step Configuration

Select New Campaign and choose Manual Setup.
Input your campaign name, select the appropriate IAB category, and select a budget type.

Selecting the IAB Category that most accurately reflects your ad’s content (rather than the default IAB3-1 Advertising) is necessary to ensure your campaign spends correctly and avoids publisher rejections. While critical for Audio and Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH), this is a best practice for all media channels.
Select between ad group budget or campaign budget. Daily budget is optional. Political Inventory checkbox is optional (only select if you’re running a political campaign).
Client Contract / IO Number is optional and can be left blank.
Navigate to Step 1: Objective to view your core optimization paths.
Input Ad Group Name (top left corner) - can be done now or later.

Best Practices

Match Tracking Capabilities: Only choose the Conversion objective when pixel or location visit tracking is actively enabled to measure the outcome.
Commit to Your Strategy: Select the best objective as the objective cannot be changed once the ad group starts spending.

Troubleshooting & FAQs

Can I change my objective after launching?
Once the ad group starts spending, you must duplicate your existing ad group or create a completely new one from the beginning to select a new objective.
Can I change my objective while I’m still in the setup phase?
Yes, but note that changing the objective mid-setup may reset some of your previously configured targeting settings and creatives for that ad group. For major changes, it is recommended to duplicate the ad group.