In Part 1 of this series, we outlined how to pull Placement reports for Performance Max and the Display Network in Google Ads. In Part 2, we outlined some filtering ideas to help you quickly identify placements to exclude. In this post, we’ll show you how to exclude all those junk placements you’ve found.
Content Suitability
The primary and easiest way to TRY to exclude Placements is to have them excluded at the account level in the Content Suitability section. With the new year, it’s a good time to review your selections in all your accounts.
Use the left toolbar and go to Tools, then Content Suitability. You can set your inventory preference based on these definitions from Google Ads:
- Expanded inventory: Maximize available inventory by showing ads without additional protections.Within Display Network, this option means your ads are more likely to appear next to dynamic app or web content when compared to Standard and Limited inventory
- Standard inventory: Show ads on content that’s considered suitable for most brands. By choosing this option, your ads are less likely to appear on content featuring Strong profanity, Strong references to sexually suggestive content, Strong dramatized violence
- Limited inventory: Exclude most types of sensitive content and limit your available inventory. By choosing this option, your ads are less likely to appear on the same content as standard inventory, and content featuring: Moderate profanity, Moderate references to sexually suggestive content, Moderate dramatized violence
Under Advanced Settings,review your options for 4 different options. You can also add your own content keywords to exclude.
I have to callout the excluded placements section for this blog post. When you open that up, you’ll see YouTube Channels, YouTube Videos, Websites, Apps and App Categories.
Excluded Placements – App Category Exclusions
When you open that up, you’ll see Apple App Store and Google Play. Here is where you can do a bulk exclusion of any and all apps where you would not want your ads to show. The unfortunate part — you must individually click each one. Also, note that some categories have other options that you also have to open up to click further. It’s really easy to miss those little drop-down carrots when you are clicking away!
Excluded Placements – Individual Exclusions – Account Level
There are a few ways you can do this. This is where we will use the reports that Andrea outlined in her Part 1 post. Use your filters or excluded lists from Part 2 and now we’ll exclude them.
Content Suitability Exclusions
The key in this section is that under Content Suitability, you’ll note there is no reference to Performance Max or Demand Gen. Any placements added here are at the account level. You can (and should) also add any Performance Max placement exclusions here to be sure they don’t show for these placements. In this section, click “Enter”, then copy/paste all the placements you want to exclude.
Be sure to select “Add # placements” in the lower left to move the placements to the right. Then select Save.
Any placements you add here will also appear as account-level exclusions if you go to Campaigns > Content > Exclusions > Edit Exclusions > Account. You can enter exclusions this way at the Account, Campaign, or Ad Group level, which is an advantage over the Content Suitability section. It’s also another way to see all your exclusions across the account, including keywords, and where they are excluded.
Note: Performance Max campaigns aren’t specifically noted anywhere in Content Suitability or in the Content section. Why? These placements are considered to be part of Search Partners. I know the date referenced is from March 2024, but that’s still an active callout in the support article!
Placement Exclusion Lists
Yet ANOTHER way you can exclude is an exclusion list. Go to Tools > Shared Library > Exclusion lists. You can do this at the account level if that’s easier for you.
If you’re an agency, you might want to use all the junk exclusions from one account into another. For example, if you want to exclude all kids’ placements for all of your clients, it would be a pain to go through these steps for each account. You can create exclusion lists at your MCC level. Login to your MCC and navigate to Tools > Shared Library > Exclusion lists. Create your placement exclusion lists. In this view, you can also see how many accounts your lists have been added to (but you can’t see which ones).
Tip: You can also come back here and update them when you do your reviews. This way, they will be applied to all accounts automatically when you add exclusions. This is the best way!
Note: You must apply the placement exclusion lists to your accounts or this won’t work. To do so, Go to Accounts > Sub-account settings. Select the accounts you want to add the lists to. Then hit Edit > Add placement exclusion lists. Select the lists you want to apply and select Apply.
Alternatively, you could use this form as well. SO MANY OPTIONS! I don’t know of an advantage for one over the other. The form is nice if you want to make a lot of changes to your Pmax campaigns and can use one form to keep it organized and documented.
So, now you have all your options for excluding, and there are a lot of them so there’s no excuse to not use the method that works best for you!
