Did you know that placement exclusions for Google Performance Max (PMax) campaigns only work if added directly through the UI? Many advertisers may unknowingly be missing out on optimizing their campaigns due to this subtle, yet crucial, requirement.
While you might be used to managing placement exclusions via the API for other campaign types, this method doesn’t apply to PMax campaigns. It’s one of those “unwritten rules” that Google’s help documentation doesn’t make explicitly clear.
When adding exclusions through the UI, there’s a cap of 5,000 URLs per upload. Additionally, Google doesn’t allow exclusions for its own properties (e.g., YouTube or Gmail), so be mindful of this limitation when crafting your strategy.
If your PMax campaigns aren’t improving despite placement exclusions added through a tool or API, this might be the culprit. Instead, navigate to the content control section in the Google Ads UI to manually add URLs for exclusion.
These insights come from PPC influencer Navah Hopkins, who recently highlighted this on her LinkedIn profile.
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