Quora ads for business: setup, targeting and formats

This guide is built from the Quora Ads help centre, mainly About Quora Ads, Campaign Structure on Quora Ads, What ad targeting options are available? and Bidding Types. The same decisions on other platforms are in our Reddit ads and X ads guides.

Why Quora

Quora is organised around Topics: groups of questions anchored by a main keyword, which people follow to see related questions and answers in their feed. Quora describes itself as "a unique, high-intent advertising platform, ideally suited to reach customers as they research a product or service". It offers contextual targeting (ads next to particular content) and behavioural targeting (ads to people based on what they have read), and says ads appear only alongside content that meets its quality bar.

In our experience it suits businesses whose buyers research and compare before they buy.

Creating an account

You need a Quora profile and an Ads Manager account. With a profile, go to quora.com/business and click Get Started, or click your profile icon and choose Create Ad, then enter your business details. Without one, sign up at quora.com with Facebook, Google or email first. Quora notes that "Quora Ads are currently available in English only", so the Ads Manager account must be created through an English Quora profile. Then add a payment method (see billing).

Campaigns, ad sets and ads

• Campaign: the objective, daily budget and schedule. Quora's checklist says to "Set a daily budget, even if you have a lifetime budget."
• Ad set: targeting, locations, devices and browsers, gender and your bid. Quora recommends 2 to 4 ad sets per campaign to test targeting types or bidding methods.
• Ad: the format and creative. Quora recommends 2 to 4 ads per ad set to test messages, images or formats.

Choosing an objective

Quora offers five campaign objectives:

• Conversions: with the Quora Pixel installed; the dashboard shows clickthrough and viewthrough conversions.
• App Installs: with a mobile measurement partner.
• Traffic: visits to your website.
• Awareness: impressions, or promoting an answer.
• Lead Generation: leads through Quora's native Lead Gen Forms.

An unusual point: Quora says "the objective you choose will not impact ad delivery". It decides which metrics appear on your dashboards. Target CPA bidding does need the Conversions or App Installs objective.

Targeting

Quora groups primary targeting into four kinds:

• Contextual: Topic Targeting (ads on question pages and feeds tagged with chosen Topics; Quora calls it "the most widely used targeting option"), Keyword Targeting (ads next to questions matching your keywords, with keyword exclusions) and Question Targeting (chosen questions).
• Audience: Website Traffic Audiences from the Quora Pixel, with a lookback of 0 to 180 days; List Match Audiences from email lists; and Lookalike Audiences built from either.
• Behavioural: Interest Targeting, Keyword History, Question History and Answer History, which reaches people who read the full text of up to 100 chosen answers in the last 30 days or less.
• Broad: the widest reach, with Auto-targeting on by default, where Quora's machine learning picks the targeting. Preparing an Auto-targeting campaign takes about 12 hours, and up to 30.

Secondary targeting narrows any of these: location (countries, states, cities, DMAs and zip codes, up to 1,700 per ad set; without locations, ads run globally), device and browser, gender, and exclusions of questions or uploaded audiences. Quora suggests uploading a list of current customers to exclude them.

Ad formats and specs

• Text ads: headline up to 65 characters, body up to 105. They can appear on question and answer pages, topic feeds and home feeds, on desktop and mobile.
• Image ads: the same text limits plus a PNG or JPG hero image (16:9 to 4:5 recommended, at least 580 px wide) and a company logo (500 x 500 px recommended, shown as a circle). The logo is reviewed, which can take several hours; without an approved logo you can't create image ads. On question pages, image ads are shown as text ads.
• Video ads: MOV or MP4 with AAC audio, 16:9 at 1280 x 720 px, captions recommended, and the same headline and description limits.
• Promoted Answers: boost an existing answer of over 250 characters to more people, labelled "Promoted by" with your name. Promoting doesn't change the answer's ranking on its question page.
• Lead Gen Forms: can be paired with any of these, with up to 12 fields such as name, email, job title and company, and a form headline of up to 65 characters.

Text, image and video ads choose from 16 call-to-action buttons, including Learn More, Sign Up, Shop Now, Get Quote and Free Trial. Quora's tips for text ads: use 40 to 60 characters of the headline and 80 or more of the body, and write in correct English without title casing.

The Quora Pixel

The Quora Pixel has two parts. The Base Pixel goes in the header of every page and enables Website Traffic Audiences and lookalikes. The Event Pixel goes on the page that confirms a conversion, such as a thank-you page, or tracks actions like Add to Cart. Quora strongly recommends installing both: you need them to track conversions, optimise bidding for conversions, retarget visitors and build lookalikes. It can be installed directly or through Google Tag Manager.

Bidding

Bids are set per ad set, and Quora offers four methods:

• CPC: you pay only for clicks, never more than your bid. Quora says most advertisers choose it. The minimum is $0.01, but Quora warns ads may get little or no delivery unless the bid is within the suggested range.
• CPM: you pay per thousand impressions, for awareness. The minimum is $0.20, which Quora says is in most cases too low for ads to be shown.
• Target CPA: Quora shows ads to people most likely to convert, charging per impression. It needs the Pixel (or a mobile measurement partner for installs) and at least 20 conversions per week per ad set; below that, delivery is little or none.
• Auto-bidding: for eligible CPC and Target CPA ad sets, Quora sets bids automatically based on your budget and target.

Quora shows a suggested bid for most ad sets, but not for Broad Targeting, Audience Targeting or Target CPA.

Billing and payment

Quora accepts credit and debit cards, not PayPal, bank transfers, checks or cryptocurrencies (India also allows prepaid credit). Adding a card triggers a temporary $10 authorisation. New advertisers are charged by threshold billing: the first charge comes at $25 of spend, and the threshold rises with each successful charge to $50, $250, $500 and $750. You are also charged on the first of each month for any balance, and you can't change the threshold yourself.

Ad review

Every ad is reviewed. Quora says "it may take a few hours for your ad to be reviewed", depending on volume, with the status "Ad Awaiting Review". If an ad is disapproved you get an email and the status changes to "Ad Revision Required". Common reasons in Quora's help centre include spelling and grammar, capitalisation and abbreviations, foreign language and the business name. Answers you promote must also follow Quora's content policy.

Our launch checklist

This is our own practice, not Quora's guidance:

• Install the Base and Event Pixel before the first campaign, so audiences start filling and conversions are measured.
• Start with two ad sets in one campaign: Topic Targeting and Keyword Targeting, each with location set.
• Bid within the suggested range on CPC, and only move to Target CPA once an ad set gets 20 or more conversions a week.
• Write ads in plain, correct English with sentence case, and upload the logo early so image ads aren't held up.

If you want help planning Quora or other paid social campaigns, see our services.

Frequently asked questions

How do I start advertising on Quora?

Create a Quora profile in English, go to quora.com/business and click Get Started to open Ads Manager, add a credit or debit card, then create a campaign, an ad set with targeting and a bid, and an ad.

What is the minimum bid on Quora ads?

$0.01 for CPC and $0.20 for CPM, but Quora warns these are usually too low to get delivery; bid within the suggested range.

What targeting does Quora offer?

Contextual (topics, keywords, questions), audiences (website traffic, list match, lookalikes), behavioural (interests, keyword, question and answer history) and broad, plus location, device, browser and gender.

How long is a Quora text ad?

A headline of up to 65 characters and body text of up to 105 characters.

How does Quora charge new advertisers?

By billing threshold: the first charge at $25 of spend, rising to $50, $250, $500 and $750 with each successful charge, plus a charge on the first of each month.

For other platforms, see our guides to LinkedIn ads, Snapchat ads and Nextdoor ads.