Introduction to App Category targeting

Implement app category targeting in Unity Ads to include or exclude entire app store categories from your user acquisition campaigns.

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Last updated 16 days ago

Targeting app categories allows you to accomplish several user acquisition goals, such as:

Deliver your ad to users already engaging with apps like yours
Deliver your ad to users in popular or high-performing app categories
Avoid delivering your ad to users in lower-performing app categories

Similar to App targeting, this feature allows you allow- or blocklist. Instead of allowing and blocking individual apps, you allow and block whole app categories, allowing you to run a highly-targeted campaign with minimal configuration. When you open the category targeting settings, there are three groups of app categories to choose from:

Game categories: apps with
```
Game
```
as the primary category, and one of the provided subcategories. For example, apps with the primary category
```
Game
```
and the subcategory
```
Action
```
.
Other categories: apps with a primary category other than games. For example, apps with the primary category
```
Finance
```
.
Unknown/Null: apps for which Unity has no category data or the data is recorded as
```
Null
```
.

App Category targeting options

Configure App Category targeting in the following ways:

Target all categories: your campaign targets all apps, regardless of category information
Select categories: you choose which app categories your campaign will target
Exclude categories: your campaign targets all categories other than those you choose

Your campaign uses Target all categories by default. Review the following tables to understand how the other targeting options, Select categories and Exclude categories, function in your campaign.

Select categories

Refer to this table for examples of using Select categories to allow-list app categories you want to target in you campaign:

Note

When choosing a category from the Game categories group, you are selecting a subcategory. The primary category for any selection in this list is Game.

Categories selected by Advertiser	Apps targeted by the campaign	Apps not targeted by the campaign
Game subcategory: `Puzzle`	All apps with the primary category `Game` and the subcategory `Puzzle`	Any apps without the primary category `Game` Any apps with a subcategory other than `Puzzle` Any apps with no subcategory information Any apps with no primary category information
Game subcategory: `Puzzle` `Unknown/Null`	All apps with the primary category `Game` and the subcategory `Puzzle` All apps for which Unity has no category information	Apps with the primary category `Game` but a different subcategory than `Puzzle` Any apps with a primary category other than Game Any apps with a subcategory other than `Puzzle`

Exclude categories

Refer to this table for examples of using Exclude categories to blocklist app categories you don't want to target in your campaign:

Note

When you select Exclude categories, your campaign targets all categories except for those you select to exclude.

Categories excluded by Advertiser	Apps targeted by the campaign	Apps not targeted by the campaign
Game subcategory: `Casual`	All apps with the primary category `Game` and a subcategory other than `Casual` All apps with no category information	All apps with the primary category `Game` and the subcategory `Casual`
Primary category: `Entertainment`	All apps with a primary category other than `Entertainment` All apps with no category information	All apps with the primary category `Entertainment`

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Unity Ads User Acquisition

Introduction to App Category targeting

App Category targeting options

Select categories

Categories selected by Advertiser

Apps targeted by the campaign

Apps not targeted by the campaign

Exclude categories

Categories excluded by Advertiser

Apps targeted by the campaign

Apps not targeted by the campaign