Performance Max campaigns are a type of campaign powered by machine learning offered by Google Ads. They allow advertisers to reach customers across all of Google’s inventory, including search, display, YouTube, and Discover.
Despite being launched in 2021, there are still many limitations when it comes to optimising Performance Max campaigns, in part due to the lack of information Google provides on performance.
As these campaigns leverage machine learning to optimise ad performance, many advertisers face challenges when it comes to controlling where ads appear. Excluding unwanted placements is essential for improving ad relevancy and ensuring budget is spent in the most effective way.
In this blog post, we’ll explore how you can exclude placements from your Performance Max campaigns to fine-tune your ad targeting.
How to find out where Performance Max ads are showing
One of the first steps to excluding placements in Performance Max campaigns is understanding where your ads are currently showing.
Google Ads provides a ‘Placements’ report that allows you to see which sites, apps, or videos your ads are being displayed on. This is located under Campaigns > Insights and reports > When and where ads showed
But if you thought you’d see this information for Performance Max campaigns here, you’d be wrong.
Instead, you will need to navigate to Campaigns > Insights and reports > Report editor and then scroll down to find the pre-built report ‘Performance Max campaign placements’.
The Performance Max campaign placements report
The Performance Max campaign placements report provides an overview of the placements where your ads have been shown, including websites, apps, and YouTube channels that have displayed your ads. You can download the report to better analyse the data, and assess which placements should be excluded.
Data limitations with Performance Max placement reporting
While the placements report does show you where ads showed, it does have major limitations when it comes to providing any meaningful data.
The only performance metric available is ‘Impressions’. When trying to determine whether or not it’s worthwhile continuing to show ads on a specific placement, the only way to get performance data such as clicks and conversions is to pay a third-party AdTech company.
Additionally, the report does not provide full transparency regarding where exactly your ads are showing – for example, all Google properties are lumped together.
How to set up placement exclusions in the Google Ads UI
Excluding placements in Performance Max campaigns can be done directly within the Google Ads user interface (UI).
To add account level exclusions, navigate to Tools > Content suitability
Here, you’ll be presented with several options:
Inventory type
Advanced settings
Under the final option, you’ll find ‘Excluded placements‘. You can exclude specific placements identified in the Performance Max campaign placements report, or entire YouTube Channels, YouTube videos, websites, apps, and app categories.
How to set up placement exclusions using Google Ads API
Until very recently, Google was adamant that exclusions could not be added via the API. However, a study by Optimizr proved this to be wrong.
If you prefer to manage exclusions at scale or have complex campaign structures, you can use the Google Ads API to set up exclusions. Using the API allows you to automate the exclusion process and manage large numbers of placements more efficiently.
How can I measure the impact of placement exclusions on my Performance Max campaigns?
Once you’ve added placement exclusions, it’s important to track the impact this has on your campaign performance. You can measure the effectiveness of your placement exclusions by monitoring key metrics such as:
- Click-through rate (CTR): Are the excluded placements negatively affecting CTR?
- Conversion rate: Compare conversion rates before and after exclusions to determine if there is an improvement
- Cost-per-conversion (CPA): Examine whether your exclusions help lower CPA or improve the efficiency of your budget allocation
Can I set Performance Max placement exclusions at campaign level?
Unlike other campaign types in Google Ads, Performance Max campaigns don’t allow exclusions to be set directly at the campaign level.
Instead, exclusions need to be configured at the account level. This is fine when excluding placements to protect brand reputation, but not so good when it comes to optimisation.
As these are account level exclusions, the changes will impact the entire account. You cannot exclude Performance Max placements at campaign level, which I think is a bad move by Google.
Think about a client that sells to different demographics; perhaps a large online retailer or marketplace.
While they may not want to show ads for women’s high heels on a men’s fitness site, they also can’t exclude them from showing there, wasting impressions, and potentially, clicks. Equally, an account level exclusion for the men’s fitness site would then mean that ads for men’s football boots, which they also stock, wouldn’t show there.
There are a few things you can do to try and prevent ads from showing in placements which are irrelevant to the target audience, like adding audience signals and data feeds to focus on specific URLs rather than excluding them from the entire account. But in my opinion, it would be better to be able to exclude placements at campaign level, as you can with other campaign formats.
How else can I gain better control over Performance Max campaigns?
In addition to excluding placements, there are several other ways you can gain better control over your Performance Max campaigns:
- Audience targeting: Refining your audience segments helps ensure that your ads are reaching the right people. Consider using first-party data, custom intent audiences, or detailed demographic targeting
- Data feeds: Providing accurate and up-to-date product or service data through data feeds can enhance the relevance of your ads. Data feeds are also a great way to group closely related products or services by restricting the campaign to a small number of URLs, or even a single URL, depending on how granular you need the campaign to be
- Asset group optimisation: Regularly optimising your asset groups by testing different creatives, headlines, and descriptions will allow Google to better match your ads to relevant placements
- Negative keywords: Check the search term insights report to identify negative keywords to add to the campaign. Note that you need to complete a campaign modification request form to add negative keywords to a Performance Max campaign, and only 1,000 keywords can be added. Negative keywords can also be applied at account level via the UI
- Campaign level negative keywords are coming soon – along with other updates coming to Performance Max
While the process of exclusions for placements and keywords is limited by a lack of data transparency, functionality, and reporting constraints, by regularly reviewing placement data, setting exclusions – and exploring other optimisation strategies – you can achieve better results and more efficient use of ad spend.
