Overview

Onsite Display campaigns follow a structured hierarchy. Understanding how these components interact is essential for building stable integrations, configuring campaigns correctly, and avoiding activation issues.

Each component serves a distinct purpose and introduces specific configuration rules.

This guide explains:

How campaign components fit together
The recommended campaign creation sequence
Where configuration belongs
How targeting, audiences, creatives, landing pages, and measurement interact

Campaign hierarchy

An Onsite Display campaign consists of the following components:

Step 1

Campaign

Campaign objective
Inventory type
Budget strategy
Flight configuration

Step 2

Item Sets

Featured measurement
Halo measurement
Audience support data
Attribution setup
Item set association

Step 3

Ad Group

Bidding
Optimization
Targeting
Geotargeting

Step 4

Audience

Behavioral targeting
Rule-based audiences
Custom audiences
Audience activation

Step 5

Creative & Landing Page

Creative asset
Landing page URL
Third-party trackers
Creative association

Typical campaign creation sequence

While campaign components are related, they are not always created at the same time.

Most implementations follow the sequence below.

1. Create campaign

Create the campaign container, define objectives, and configure other campaign-level settings.

2. Create item sets

Create and associate featured and optional halo measurement item sets with the campaign.

3. Create ad group

Define bidding, budget and scheduling when not configured at the campaign level, and delivery settings.

4. Configure targeting

Apply targeting tactics, geotargeting, and audiences.

5. Associate creative

Assign creative, landing pages, and trackers.

6. Launch campaign

Activate delivery and begin measurement.

Onsite Display campaign components

All components must be configured correctly for a campaign to launch and measure successfully.

Acts as a container for ad groups that share common objectives and optimization strategies.

Campaigns define:

Objectives
Inventory type
Budget strategy
Flight configuration

Configuration inheritance rules

Certain parameters must be configured either at the campaign level or the ad group level — not both.

These include:

budgetType
dailyBudget or totalBudget
startDate
endDate
deliverySpeed

Once an ad group reaches a scheduled state, the level where these parameters are defined cannot be changed.

Configuration placement

✅ Allowed

Budget configured entirely at the campaign level
Budget configured entirely at the ad group level
Delivery settings remain at the original level

❌ Not Allowed

Budget defined at both campaign and ad group level
Moving budget configuration after scheduling
Moving delivery settings after scheduling

Why these rules matter

Budgets, schedules, and delivery settings are inherited throughout the campaign hierarchy.

Choosing where those settings live early in the campaign lifecycle helps avoid:

Validation failures
Update restrictions
Scheduling issues
Campaign activation delays

Campaign structure & hierarchy