The same advertising budget can perform very differently on a phone than on a desktop, because the device a customer uses to find you often hides what they are doing right then: the person tapping out "food delivery near me" on their phone at lunchtime, and the buyer at an office desk comparing several quotes before they commit, are simply not in the same frame of mind. Device targeting lets you treat customers differently by the device they are on (computer, mobile, tablet), lifting the budget on the device that is likelier to convert, and dialling down, or even switching off, the one that rarely does. For a small Vancouver business, its concrete value is saving money and improving efficiency: the same spend lands more often where "the customer will actually contact you on this screen." One thing to be clear about first: the device itself is a dimension within the targeting layer, while "adjusting up or down by device" is done through a bid adjustment set at the campaign or ad-group level.
Who is this article for? ❓
If you run a business in Vancouver, are already running or about to run Google Ads, and have a vague sense that "the customers from mobile seem different from the ones from desktop", this is worth a few minutes. It will not walk you through ticking devices and changing numbers in the dashboard; instead it helps you think one thing through: on which device do your conversions actually mostly happen, and which way should the budget lean. If your business performs much the same on mobile and on desktop, with no clear bias, this matters less to you and you can skim.
First, get this straight: which layer the device is, and how you adjust it
Google Ads is built in nested layers: the outermost is the campaign (Campaign, that is, the ad "type"), which decides on which network and in what form the ad appears; inside that come the ad group and the specific ad copy; then comes targeting, which decides "who the ad goes to, and in what circumstances it appears". The device is one dimension within targeting, alongside location, keywords and audience: location governs "where", keywords govern "what they are searching for", and the device governs "which kind of screen they are searching on".
But there is a point here that is easy to muddle, and it needs separating, or the rest gets tangled:
- The device itself (whether to appear on this kind of device at all): by default, your ad runs on all three devices. The only "hard off" you can do is to exclude a device entirely, so the ad does not show on it at all.
- The device bid adjustment: the more common move is not "off" but "adjust". You tell Google "I will pay a bit more for a click on mobile and a bit less on desktop", giving each of the three devices an up-or-down percentage. This setting is, strictly speaking, a bidding control, set at the campaign or ad-group level.
So device targeting is, strictly, not one of Google's "audience targeting methods" but a device dimension plus a bid adjustment; yet from your point of view as the owner, it genuinely answers "which kind of screen's people should the ad lean towards", which is why we cover it within this targeting series.
Behind the device is the customer's situation
When you split the money by device, what you are really splitting by is not screen size but what the person behind the screen is doing right then. For a small business, the three device types you will mainly work with are computer, mobile and tablet, and each tends to match a typical situation:
- Mobile: the person is on the move, in a queue, commuting. They want an answer they can use straight away, and the moment they see a fit they tap to call or open maps and drive over. Quick to decide, in a hurry to act.
- Computer: the person is mostly at a desk with a stretch of time, willing to read closely, compare repeatedly, fill in a longer form. Slow to decide, reading carefully.
- Tablet: often "leisure browsing" on the sofa in the evening. It sits between the two: they will take in content, but may not act on the spot.
Grasp this layer and you see why you cannot price all three devices the same: the same click, coming from a mobile user who wants to order at once at lunchtime, and from a tablet user idly browsing with no hurry at all, is worlds apart in value to you.
An example: food delivery leans mobile, B2B quotes lean desktop
Setting two very different Vancouver businesses side by side makes it clearest.
First, a local food-delivery service or restaurant. Your customers are almost all people who are hungry, out and about, tapping "food delivery near me" on their phone; what they want is to order right away, call, navigate. For this business, mobile is the lifeline. If you control your bids manually, raise the mobile bid a notch so the ad more easily wins a prominent spot on mobile; the "sit down and browse at leisure" demand on desktop matters less to you here and can be dialled down.
Second, a B2B, quote-driven business (say office fit-outs, or corporate IT services). Your customers are people inside companies, mostly during work hours, sitting at a desktop, wanting to read your case studies, compare a few firms, and fill in an enquiry form with budget and requirements, all things that are hard to do properly on a small phone screen. This business should lean towards desktop: raise the desktop bid and you can hold mobile down, because clicks from mobile here are often just an idle glance and rarely complete the form.
And do not forget what the person on the other end of the ad experiences: that lunchtime food-delivery searcher, because you raised the mobile bid, is likelier to see you near the top of the results and, with one tap, has called you, exactly the moment you wanted. That B2B buyer, meanwhile, is likelier to meet you when they have actually sat down with time to read and time to fill in the form (that is, at a desktop), rather than being interrupted by your ad while squeezed onto the SkyTrain swiping a phone with no time to take it in. Spend the money on "the right screen at the right moment" and both sides come out ahead.
A crucial fact: with Smart Bidding, "adjusting the bid" changes shape
Many people have not got this straight, and it must be spelled out, or the effort is easily wasted.
If you use manual bidding, then what was said above holds: you can set each of mobile, desktop and tablet its own up-or-down percentage, over a wide range, from a cut of -100% (which is the same as switching that device off entirely) all the way up to a large increase, entirely as you decide.
But if you use Google's Smart Bidding (automated strategies such as Target ROAS, Maximize conversions, Maximize conversion value), things are different. The system sets bids itself based on each device's actual conversion performance: if mobile converts more easily, it naturally leans towards mobile, with no manual increase from you. In that case the only device adjustment left to you is -100%, that is, "switch off entirely a device that hardly ever converts" and tell the system not to spend there. Put another way, with Smart Bidding you hand "which device is worth more" to the system to learn, and the power you keep is "which device to simply not advertise on". Work out first which bidding method you are on, then decide whether you are "adjusting the percentage" or can only "switch on or off", so you do not labour pointlessly over a setting that does not apply.
Where this sits in your business
Device targeting sits within marketing and customer acquisition, in the "spend the budget where it counts" part: it does not change what your ad looks like, nor the broad question of whom it goes to; it only reweights, among the people already selected, by the screen they use. It is one step ahead of your website and makes a hard demand of it: since you are going after mobile users, your website must open fast on mobile, be clear to read, and let them call or order in one tap. Otherwise the ad finally brings a mobile user across, but the landing page is sluggish and awkward, and the money is wasted all the same.
What happens if you do not get this straight
A common outcome is the budget quietly leaking away where you are not watching. Run all three devices at one price and the device that, for your particular business, simply does not convert still takes its share of your money, returning a pile of useless traffic that clicks and never contacts you. A more hidden waste is setting a manual device increase while forgetting you are actually on Smart Bidding. That manual adjustment never takes effect at all; you think you are optimising, and the system has paid it no heed. A month on, the report shows plenty spent and hardly any more real customers. This often gets blamed on "Google Ads not working", when really the device layer was never sorted and the money went to the wrong screen.
When it is worth taking seriously
A few common moments. Your business clearly leans towards one device: those relying on people calling or coming in immediately (food delivery, repairs, ride-hailing) mostly lean mobile; those needing customers to compare carefully and fill in long forms before they convert (B2B, quote-driven, high-value orders) mostly lean desktop; or you check the ad report and find one device clicks a lot yet almost never converts, the money simply wasted there. Meet any one of these, and device targeting is well worth bringing into consideration.
Leave this to 5U Website
Device targeting looks like merely "putting a percentage on mobile and on desktop", but the difficulty lies in judging on which screen your conversions actually mostly happen, by how much that number should go up or down, and whether you are on manual or Smart Bidding, which directly decides whether you can "adjust" at all or only "switch off". Here is our honest view: most local shops that close by phone or a walk-in do not need to fine-tune device bids at all. Your money is better spent first on making the mobile landing page fast and one-tap-to-call, which moves the needle far more than a few percentage points on a bid. The time it is genuinely worth touching is the other case: you check the report and find one device steadily spending yet almost never converting. Over our years building websites and doing digital marketing for Vancouver businesses, we have seen too many accounts burning through all three devices at one price, or setting a manual adjustment that Smart Bidding then overrides. What we do for clients is first see clearly which device your customers really contact you on, lean the budget towards the right screen by the data, make sure your website is genuinely usable on that device the moment it opens, and then keep reading conversions and adjusting, so that, as far as possible, every part of the budget lands where "the customer will actually look for you on this screen". If you are about to run ads, or have an account that has long shown no results, take a look at our website design and digital marketing services, or send an email describing your situation. We usually reply within one to two business days.
To tie this layer together, read on: the overview of what Google Ads actually is and which layers it has, the overall thinking behind showing your ads only to potential buyers (targeting), and, also a matter of "adjusting up or down by a single dimension", running and adjusting bids by time of day (ad scheduling).
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