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Filter traffic with Blacklisted Targets
Filter traffic with Blacklisted Targets
RTX Platform Support avatar
Written by RTX Platform Support
Updated over a week ago

NOTE: Blacklisting was previously called "Audience Filters".

In addition to the Pops targets that determine the sites that display your ad, you can further refine when and to whom your ad is shown by using blacklisting.

Blacklisting is a powerful optimization tool that allows you to distill your traffic down to the highest quality. Blacklisting traffic that does not convert for your offer saves you money so your budget is spent on traffic that is more likely to convert.

How does blacklisting work?

When you add blacklisted targets, you are filtering out specific types of traffic. Your campaign(s) will not receive traffic from the targets you've blacklisted.

What types of traffic can I blacklist?

You can blacklist the following types of targets globally across all Pops campaigns, or within individual Pops campaigns:

How can I use blacklisting to optimize my campaign performance?

Blacklisting gives you more targeting flexibility beyond the targets you add to your campaign. With blacklisting, you can define which types of traffic your targets can receive, so you can you can distill every impression down to the highest quality and earn more by spending smarter.

Using blacklists to optimize

When you find a domain, sub-ID, or IP that is not converting well for a specific campaign, you can add it to your campaign's blacklist to avoid paying for that traffic. If the domain, sub-ID, or IP does not convert well for any of your Pops campaigns, you can add it to your global blacklist to eliminate that traffic from all of your Pops campaigns.

The more targets you blacklist, the narrower your campaign will become. If your volume is too low after blacklisting targets, you may want to remove some from your blacklist.

TIP: Increase conversions with Blackballer! Blackballer intelligently pauses any channels and blacklists any sub-IDs and domains that have not received conversions after sufficient testing. Enable Blackballer on your campaign’s Settings page. Learn more.

How do I track domain, sub-ID, and IP performance?

By tracking performance for specific domains, sub-IDs, and IPs, you'll have actionable data to help you strategically determine what you should blacklist for the best ROI.

Install a conversion pixel to track conversion rates and profit for each domain, sub-ID, and IP in RTX Platform's comprehensive reporting suite, or append tracking macros to your creative URLs to pass this data to your tracking platform.

What tips or best practices should I keep in mind when blacklisting targets?

  • Adding items to a blacklist without sufficient performance data on those items can negatively impact ROI. Only blacklist items once they've gotten a significant number of impressions compared to your campaign's total volume.

  • Just because a domain, sub-ID, or IP performs poorly in one campaign doesn't mean it should be excluded from all campaigns. Before adding a domain, sub-ID, or IP to your global blacklist, make sure it has a consistently low conversion rate across all your campaigns.

  • If you'd like to apply the same blacklisted targets from one campaign to another, you can export your campaign's blacklist by clicking the Download CSV button. Then, copy the items from the spreadsheet and add them to the other campaign.

  • Blacklisted targets can be deleted individually or in bulk. Just check the box next to the target(s) you'd like to remove (or check the uppermost box in the column header of the table to select them all), then click the Delete button.

  • Use the search filter to find blacklisted targets that match certain strings of characters. For example, if you want to remove all blacklisted IP addresses beginning with 155, enter 155 into the search field. You can also sort items alphanumerically by clicking the column header above your list of blacklisted targets.

  • As you optimize your campaigns with blacklisted targets, increase your Suggested Base Bid and/or Conversion Boost℠: Quality Tiers℠ sliders on each campaign's settings page to bid more competitively and get more traffic.

    NOTE: The Suggested Base Bid and Potential Daily Reach indicator do not take your blacklists into account.

How do I customize my blacklists?

The global blacklist is located in the secondary navigation bar at the top of the page, and campaign blacklists are located in the Blacklist tab within a campaign.

Blacklisting domains

Follow these steps to add global blacklisted domains, which block impressions on specific sites across all Pops campaigns:

  1. Log into your RTX Platform account.

  2. Click Pops at the top of the page to navigate to the Pops Overview page.

  3. Click Blacklist below the main navigation bar at the top of any Pops page.

  4. Click the New Global Blacklisted Targets button, then select Domain.

  5. Enter each domain, subdomain, or TLD you'd like to blacklist from your campaigns (one per line).

  6. When you're finished, click Add Targets to apply the blacklisted domain targets to all of your Pops campaigns.

Follow these steps to add campaign blacklisted domains, which block impressions on specific sites for a single Pops campaign:

  1. Log into your RTX Platform account.

  2. Click Pops at the top of the page to navigate to the Pops Overview page, then click Campaigns below the main navigation bar.

  3. In the data table, click the name of the campaign you're adding blacklisted domains to, then click the Blacklist tab.

  4. Click the New Campaign Blacklisted Targets button, then select Domain.

  5. Enter each domain, subdomain, or TLD you'd like to blacklist from your campaign (one per line).

  6. When you're finished, click Add Targets to apply the blacklisted domain targets to your Pops campaign.

Supported inputs for blacklisted domains

Blacklisted domains can only be root domains (example.com), subdomains (page.example.com), or TLDs (.com, .edu, etc).

Root domains you enter will block the root domain, all subdomains, and the full path. For example, adding example.com will also block www.example.com, blog.example.com, and example.com/example-blog-post.html.

Subdomains you enter will block the subdomain and its full path, but not the root domain or other subdomains. For example, adding blog.example.com will also block blog.example.com/example-blog-post.html, but will not block www.example.com or example.com/example-blog-post.html.

TIP: www. is considered a subdomain.

TLDs you add will block all URLs containing that TLD. For example, adding .edu will block my-school.edu, another-school.edu, classes.example-school.edu, example.edu/fall2014/enrollment.html, and any other page with a .edu TLD.

Blacklisting IPs

Follow these steps to add global blacklisted IPs, which prevent all of your Pops campaigns from serving your ads to specific IP addresses:

  1. Log into your RTX Platform account.

  2. Click Pops at the top of the page to navigate to the Pops Overview page.

  3. Click Blacklist below the main navigation bar at the top of any Pops page.

  4. Click the New Global Blacklisted Targets button, then select IP.

  5. Enter each IP address you'd like to blacklist from your campaigns (one per line).

  6. When you're finished, click Add Targets to apply the blacklisted IP targets to all of your Pops campaigns.

Follow these steps to add campaign blacklisted IPs, which prevent an individual Pops campaign from serving your ads to specific IP addresses:

  1. Log into your RTX Platform account.

  2. Click Pops at the top of the page to navigate to the Pops Overview page, then click Campaigns below the main navigation bar.

  3. In the data table, click the name of the campaign you're adding blacklisted IPs to, then click the Blacklist tab.

  4. Click the New Campaign Blacklisted Targets button, then select IP.

  5. Enter each IP address you'd like to blacklist from your campaign (one per line).

  6. When you're finished, click Add Targets to apply the blacklisted IP targets to your Pops campaign.

Supported inputs for blacklisted IPs

Blacklisted IPs must contain the full IP address. IPv4 and IPv6 are supported.

Examples: 123.145.167.89 and 2001:0db8:7654:3210:fedc:ba98:7654:3210.

Blacklisting sub-IDs

TIP: Use RTX Platform reporting to see how each sub-ID performs.

Follow these steps to add global blacklisted sub-IDs, which prevent all of your Pops campaigns from receiving traffic from specific sub-IDs:

  1. Log into your RTX Platform account.

  2. Click Pops at the top of the page to navigate to the Pops Overview page.

  3. Click Blacklist below the main navigation bar at the top of any Pops page.

  4. Click the New Global Blacklisted Targets button, then select Sub-ID.

  5. Enter each sub-ID you'd like to blacklist from your campaigns (one per line).

  6. When you're finished, click Add Targets to apply the blacklisted sub-ID targets to all of your Pops campaigns.

Follow these steps to add campaign blacklisted sub-IDs, which prevent an individual Pops campaign from receiving traffic from specific sub-IDs:

  1. Log into your RTX Platform account.

  2. Click Pops at the top of the page to navigate to the Pops Overview page, then click Campaigns below the main navigation bar.

  3. In the data table, click the name of the campaign you're adding blacklisted sub-IDs to, then click the Blacklist tab.

  4. Click the New Campaign Blacklisted Targets button, then select Sub-ID.

  5. Enter each sub-ID you'd like to blacklist from your campaign (one per line).

  6. When you're finished, click Add Targets to apply the blacklisted sub-ID targets to your Pops campaign.

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