On this page:
What is it?
The Account-Level Placement Exclusion tool is an optimization that allows you to exclude the low-performing placements at an account level, thereby mitigating wasted spend. These exclusions apply to all campaigns, including Performance Max.
Why use this tool?
Excluding non-converting placements from an account helps prevent your ads from showing up on these placements on the Display network or YouTube, overriding any campaign-level placement targeting. It helps you reduce wasted ad spend on them, thus conserving your valuable budget for campaigns with greater potential.
Account-level placement exclusions are a great solution especially for campaign types like Performance Max and Smart Display campaigns, as Google doesn't support excluding placements at a campaign level or through a negative list for them. Plus, the tool offers the option of customizing the rules and automating this activity, saving you a ton of time and money.
You can read more about how account-level placement exclusions work here.
What does this tool do?
Operating on a Rule Engine strategy, this tool suggests excluding low-performing placements at the account level based on some pre-defined rules (which are completely customizable).
It also offers insights into the potential wasted ad spend linked to these placements.
You have the option to review and apply the suggestions manually and/or automate the process if the conditions make sense to apply to your account regularly.
Understanding the results and filtering suggestions
The tool shows you non-converting placements along with key performance data and other information like “Placement Type” to give you greater insight into the suggestions. You can use the left menu to filter your results by “Placement Type” for easier analysis.
Click on “View Strategy” and add it as a Rule Engine strategy to your account. You’ll then be directed to the “Conditions” page where you can view/edit the conditions involved in the strategy and save your preferences for future use.
Once satisfied with the suggestions shown, you can exclude them from your account using the “Apply Suggestions” option or even choose to export the results into a spreadsheet to review them at your convenience.
Automating the process
In case this is an optimization you plan to perform regularly, we recommend that you "automate" the Rule Engine strategy to save time.
You also have the option to just receive email notifications or the results populated in a spreadsheet during each automation run and not allow the system to apply changes automatically, till you gain confidence in the system-generated results.
Important notes
Limits - As detailed in Google's support page, you can enter a maximum of 20,000 placement exclusions at a time, and a total of 65,000 placement exclusions per account.
URL Limitations - Please note that any URL associated with a Google domain (for example, youtube.com and mail.google.com) can't be added as placement exclusions.