What is a placement exclusion?

A placement exclusion (or negative placement) prevents your ads from showing on a specific website, app, app category, YouTube channel, or video. It is how you keep Display and Performance Max campaigns off irrelevant or low-quality inventory.

Can you exclude placements in Performance Max?

Yes, but only at the account or manager-account (MCC) level. Performance Max does not support campaign-level placement exclusions, so you apply them account-wide and PMax respects them. You can also exclude whole app categories through content suitability settings.

What is Placement Exclusions? | ads.expert Glossary

Placement exclusions (or negative placements) stop your ads from serving on specific websites, apps, app categories, YouTube channels, or videos you don't want. They are how you keep Display and Performance Max off junk inventory like games and low-quality apps. PMax respects account-level and MCC-level exclusions, but not campaign-level ones.

What you can exclude, and where

You can exclude individual URLs, whole sites, mobile apps, entire app categories (games, dating, kids), YouTube channels, and videos. For most campaign types you set these at the campaign level. For Performance Max, campaign-level exclusions are not available, so they must be applied at the account or manager-account (MCC) level, which PMax then respects.

The two-layer habit

Category exclusions through content suitability knock out the obviously off-ICP inventory up front. The ongoing work is the placement report ("Where ads showed"): review it regularly and exclude the specific apps and sites that actually served junk. Placements never stop appearing, so it is recurring hygiene, not a one-time setting. Placement exclusions are the where-ads-show cousin of negative keywords; full walkthrough in the PMax mobile-app leak.

What is Placement Exclusions?

What you can exclude, and where

The two-layer habit

Related terms

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