Advertiser docs · Targeting explained

    Targeting explained

    What determines where your ads appear — and what you can do to control it.

    What matters most

    1. CategoryBiggest impact on where your ad appears
    2. GeographyDecides which countries your ad can run in
    3. Language & deviceDecide which websites and devices your ad can run on

    How delivery works

    HalalSpark doesn't use an auction. There's no bidding, no real-time competition between advertisers. Every time a publisher page loads, ads are selected based on relevance — higher-relevance ads are more likely to appear, but no ad is ever permanently locked out of an impression.

    Geography, language and device decide where your ad is allowed to run: it only runs in the countries you choose, on websites whose readers read your ad's language, and on the devices you pick. Among the impressions that pass those checks, category decides how likely your ad is to be chosen.

    Category is the one setting that never rules a site out — your ad can still appear on sites in other categories, just less often. Every country, language or device you leave out shrinks the number of impressions your ad can win.

    Category

    Each publisher site has a content category — Islamic Education, Finance, Food & Recipes, Lifestyle, Travel, and so on. Category is your strongest lever: an ad that closely matches the site's category is much more likely to appear there than one that doesn't.

    • Target up to 3 categories per campaign
    • Exact match — highest likelihood of appearing on that site
    • Related categories — still good, slightly lower chance
    • No match — your ad can still appear, just less often
    If you can only set one thing precisely, make it category. It has the biggest single impact on where your ad ends up.

    Geography

    Geo decides which visitors can see your ad. If a visitor's location doesn't match your campaign's geo settings — and there's no regional fallback — your ad won't enter the pool for that impression at all.

    Within your eligible countries, closer matches increase your chances:

    • Exact country match — strongest delivery boost
    • Regional match — visitor is in your targeted region (e.g. South Asia, MENA) — moderate delivery
    • Global campaign — no geo restriction, eligible everywhere

    You pick countries one by one, or add a whole region at once with the quick-add buttons. Your ad only runs in the countries on your list.

    If your campaign isn't spending, geo targeting that's too narrow is the most common reason. Try adding a few nearby countries, or a whole region with one of the quick-add buttons.

    Language

    Tell us the language your ad is in, and it only runs on websites whose readers read that language. Each publisher lists the languages their readers read when they register their site.

    • Your ad's language is one of the site's languages — your ad can run there
    • None of your languages match the site's — your ad never runs there
    • You can tick more than one language — your ad can run on sites that read any of them

    Only tick the languages a reader needs to understand your ad. If your ad is mostly an image with little text, ticking more languages gives it more places to run.

    Device

    Choose all devices, mobile only or desktop only. Mobile includes tablets, and a mobile-only campaign can be narrowed to iPhone or Android. Like geo and language, this is a strict rule: a mobile-only ad never shows to a desktop visitor.

    Leave this open unless your landing page or offer is suited to a specific device. Restricting to desktop only cuts out a large share of Muslim audience traffic, which skews heavily mobile.

    Practical tips

    Start broad, then narrow

    New campaigns benefit from broader targeting to build early delivery. Once you can see what's performing, tighten from there.

    Don't stack too many constraints

    Setting all four dimensions (category + country + language + device) at once significantly shrinks your eligible audience. Each constraint you add reduces volume.

    Category is your strongest lever

    If you only tighten one thing, make it category — it has the biggest impact on reaching the right audience.

    Add nearby countries if your campaign isn't spending

    If exact-country inventory is limited (common for smaller markets), adding a few nearby countries, or a whole region with one of the quick-add buttons, opens up more delivery without losing your geo intent entirely.