How do you plan US websites for a Canadian audience?
Part of US and Canada targeting
The short answer
Plan a US website for a Canadian audience on three pieces of evidence: Canadian readers, shown by country data such as Chrome UX Report bands or the publisher's own country report; Canadian impressions for sale, confirmed in bid requests or a deal forecast; and content that fits a Canadian reader. Then label the site as US based in the plan.
Key takeaways
- In the 2025 Digital News Report Canada, the New York Times was cited by 27 percent of Anglophone respondents who pay for digital news, beside the Toronto Star at 26 percent.
- Readers and inventory are separate facts: a US site can have Canadian readers and still offer little Canadian supply on a given deal.
- Chrome UX Report ranks are relative within each country, so a site in a high global band can sit in a lower Canadian one.
- Content fit is the third test: an article on US tax rules is a poor match for a Canadian reader on any site.
How do I plan for Canadian readers of a US based publisher?
Treat a US publisher in a Canadian plan as a claim that needs evidence, and test it three ways. Does the site have readers in Canada? Will its sellers offer impressions from those readers to this buy? Do the pages that will carry the ad make sense to someone in Canada? A plan that checks only readers will overstate Canadian scale.
Survey data shows why the question is worth asking. The Digital News Report Canada 2025 (opens in a new tab) from Université Laval's Centre d'études sur les médias asked respondents who made a regular payment for digital news which services they paid for. Among Anglophones, the report found the New York Times "is the most popular, with 27% of Anglophone respondents citing it, a share similar to that of the Toronto Star (26%)." The 2026 edition does not repeat the subscription brand question.
What evidence shows a US site has Canadian readers?
Evidence of Canadian readers comes from two kinds of sources, public and publisher supplied, and they answer slightly different questions. The Chrome UX Report country dimension (opens in a new tab) is inferred from visitors' IP addresses and available in BigQuery only. A publisher's own analytics can be more direct: Google Analytics' Demographic details report (opens in a new tab) defines Country as "The country from which user activity originated" and says "Google Analytics automatically derives location data from users' IP addresses."
| Evidence | What it proves | What it leaves open |
|---|---|---|
| Chrome UX Report band in the Canadian table | The origin ranks among Chrome navigations from Canada, in half step bands such as top 10k or top 50k | Counts of people, devices outside Chrome's scope, and whether ads serve to those visits |
| Publisher country report for a stated period | Canadian users and their share of the site's total, as the publisher's analytics records them | Whether the report is filtered, sampled or complete; ask for the date range and the worldwide total |
| A Canadian edition or section | The publisher writes for Canadian readers on purpose | Traffic to that section, and whether ads there are sold separately |
| Canadian topics in recent articles | Editorial attention to Canada | Audience size in Canada |
| Publisher's statement of Canadian readership | What the seller claims | Method, period and source; treat it as a lead until data backs it |
Ask for the publisher's country report as a dated pair: Canadian users and the same period's worldwide users. A share without the total hides scale, and a total without the share hides how Canadian the site is. A small Canadian share of a very large US audience can still exceed a small Canadian specialist's readership, so keep both on the list with their labels.
Can a globally popular domain have a small Canadian audience?
Yes. Chrome UX Report ranks are computed per country. The CrUX metrics documentation (opens in a new tab) says "Rank is on a log10 scale with half steps (e.g. top 1k, top 5k, top 10k, top 50k, top 100k, top 500k, top 1M, etc.)," measured by total navigations on the origin. A US local news site, a state government portal or a US retailer's content hub can sit high in the US table and far lower in Canada's, because its readers are American.
The reverse can happen too: a US site on a niche topic with no Canadian competitor can rank higher in Canada than its US size suggests. Global popularity is the wrong filter in both directions. What a Canadian plan needs is the Canadian band, read from the Canadian table, and a note when no band exists, since an origin must be sufficiently popular to appear and missing data is not proof of no readers. Our CrUX popularity rank guide covers how the bands are built.
Definition
- Canadian band
- The popularity bucket a site's origin falls into in the Chrome UX Report table for Canada, as opposed to its bucket in the global data or in another country's table.
What proves that a US based publisher sells Canadian impressions?
A US publisher may sell Canadian traffic through the open auction, hold it back for direct deals, or offer a private marketplace deal that only covers US users. The proof sits in the buying platform. Display & Video 360's best practices for setting up deals (opens in a new tab) say "you can check the data for incoming bid requests on the Troubleshooter tab under Targeting > Geography," and that after a deal is live buyers can check geo inventory with an Inventory Availability report, which "can be delayed for a few days and will not have any inventory for newly created deals."
Four checks before a US site carries Canadian budget
- Confirm the selling path. Read the site's ads.txt for authorized sellers; the ads.txt specification (opens in a new tab) marks each as DIRECT or RESELLER, which tells you who controls the account, not where the users are.
- Ask the seller about Canadian supply. For a deal, ask whether Canadian traffic is included and whether the deal carries any geography of its own.
- Forecast with the Canadian setting on. Run the inventory forecast with Canada as the geography and the site or deal as the inventory.
- Read the bid requests after launch. Check incoming requests by geography in the deal troubleshooter, and compare with the forecast before moving budget.
In the bid request itself, the OpenRTB 2.6 specification (opens in a new tab) keeps the two facts in separate objects. Site.domain is the "Domain of the site," while Geo.country is a "Country code using ISO-3166-1-alpha-3," so a US domain with a CAN country code is a Canadian impression on a US site. That pairing is what a Canadian line item on a US site is buying.
How do geo settings interact with US sites in a Canada plan?
A site list and a geography setting do different jobs. The list says which domains may carry the ad; the line item's geography says which users may see it. Put a US site on a list and set the line to Canada, and the line can only buy that site's impressions from users the platform places in Canada. Display & Video 360's geography targeting help (opens in a new tab) notes that its location reports "are based on the data received in the bid request at bid time," which can differ from ad server reports.
Two consequences follow. A US site's place on a Canadian list adds no Canadian supply on its own, so forecasts should be run per site or per deal. And removing the Canada setting to make a US site spend defeats the brief, since the line would then buy US readers. Our programmatic geo targeting guide explains how platforms place a user.
How should the plan label US based sites?
A label tells the client why a foreign site is on a Canadian plan and how strong the evidence is. Keep it short and consistent across plans, and write the evidence beside it.
| Label | When to use it | Evidence to record |
|---|---|---|
| US based, Canadian readers shown | Canadian band or publisher country report shows a real Canadian audience | Band or share, with the month or date range |
| US based, Canadian edition | The publisher runs a Canadian section or edition | Section URL and whether it is sold separately |
| US based, Canadian supply confirmed | Bid requests or a forecast show Canadian impressions for this buy | Forecast date or troubleshooter check date |
| US based, evidence pending | Topic fit is strong but no Canadian data yet | What was asked for and from whom |
| US based, set aside | No Canadian evidence, or content tied to US rules and places | The reason, so the site can be reconsidered later |
Labels also help with content fit. A US personal finance site may have Canadian readers and still publish mainly on US tax forms. A US based label with a topic note shows the client the tradeoff before a placement report does.
What does a cross-border list look like in practice?
Fictional example
An Edmonton tax filing app plans for tax season
An unnamed Edmonton company sells online income tax filing software to Canadians and wants display ads in Alberta beside personal finance, budgeting and household money content from February to April. The topic search returns Canadian finance blogs and several large US personal finance publishers.
The planner asks two US publishers for dated country reports. One shows a Canadian share with a worldwide total for the same quarter and has a Canadian section on registered savings accounts; it is labeled US based, Canadian edition. The other has Canadian readers by its Canadian band, but its recent articles are about IRS forms and 401(k) plans, so it is labeled US based, set aside, with the topic reason.
The kept US site's private marketplace deal is forecast with Alberta as the geography before any budget moves, and after launch the deal troubleshooter's geography check is read alongside the forecast. The Canadian blogs run on their own line, labeled Canadian based.
How does PlacementGraph show a US site's Canadian audience?
Frequently asked questions
Is a publisher's claim of Canadian readership enough evidence?
Treat it as a lead. Ask for a dated country report that gives Canadian users and the same period's worldwide total, and check the site's Canadian band in the Chrome UX Report. A claim with no method or period behind it can sit on the plan as evidence pending, not as a confirmed Canadian site.
Should a US site's Canadian edition be bought separately?
Where the publisher sells the Canadian edition as its own inventory, buying it separately keeps the ad beside content written for Canadians. Where it does not, the line item's Canada setting does the work on the main domain, and content fit is checked on the pages the ad reaches.
Why does a US site show Canadian readers but deliver almost nothing in Canada?
Readers and sold inventory are different things. The publisher may keep Canadian traffic for direct sales, the deal may carry its own geography, or the sellers may send little Canadian supply to the exchange the buyer uses. Display & Video 360's deal troubleshooter shows incoming bid requests by geography, which is where to look first.
Does a Canada setting stop a US site's ads from reaching Americans?
It limits the line item to users the platform places in Canada. Display & Video 360 describes location targeting as Google's best effort and says 100% accuracy is not guaranteed in every situation, so read delivery by country in reports rather than assuming none of it lands outside Canada.
Sources
- Digital News Report Canada, 2025 data (opens in a new tab)Centre d'études sur les médias, Université Laval, June 2025
- Demographic details report (opens in a new tab)Google Analytics Help
- Best practices for setting up deals (opens in a new tab)Display & Video 360 Help
- Geography targeting (opens in a new tab)Display & Video 360 Help
- OpenRTB 2.6 specification (opens in a new tab)IAB Tech Lab
- ads.txt 1.1 specification (opens in a new tab)IAB Tech Lab
- CrUX metrics (opens in a new tab)Chrome for Developers
- CrUX dimensions (opens in a new tab)Chrome for Developers
- Location targeting (opens in a new tab)Display & Video 360 Help
Researched and written by PlacementGraph Research. Read how we research, source and update these pages. Corrections: diana@placementgraph.com.