PPCTemplatesAdOps

How to Build an SOP for Account-Level Placement Exclusions in Google Ads

UUnknown

2026-02-23

9 min read

Plug-and-play SOP to implement account-level placement exclusions in Google Ads — step-by-step template, checklist, and a 2026 governance playbook.

Stop Chasing Fragmented Exclusions: Build an SOP to Control Placements at Scale

Pain point: Large Google Ads accounts suffer from fragmented placement exclusions, inconsistent brand safety enforcement, and slow ad ops workflows. In 2026, with more automation (Performance Max, Demand Gen) and complex inventory (YouTube, in-app), teams need a repeatable SOP to block unwanted placements account-wide — not campaign-by-campaign.

Why an account-level placement exclusion SOP matters in 2026

In January 2026 Google announced account-level placement exclusions, letting advertisers centralize placement blocks across Performance Max, Demand Gen, YouTube and Display. This update changes campaign governance: rather than patching exclusions at the campaign level, you can operate a single source of truth for ad inventory blocking. For teams managing hundreds of campaigns or multiple brands, that unlocks efficiency, reduces leakage, and improves brand safety.

But the feature alone isn’t enough. Without an operational playbook — roles, approvals, auditing, and integration with existing workflows — account-level exclusions can create confusion and risk. This article gives a plug-and-play SOP template, a checklist, and real-world guidance you can apply today.

High-level SOP: Goals, scope, and outcomes

Objective: Implement, govern, and audit account-level placement exclusions to minimize unsafe impressions and wasted spend while preserving campaign automation.

Scope: All Google Ads campaigns eligible for account-level exclusions (Performance Max, Demand Gen, YouTube, Display).
Primary outcomes: Single exclusion list per account, documented approval workflow, weekly audit reports, and measurable reduction in unwanted placements.
KPIs: % of impressions on excluded placements prevented, reduction in low-quality CPAs from excluded inventory, time-to-block (hours) after incident.

Role definitions and RACI

Define roles to avoid confusion during rapid response situations:

Owner (O): Ad Operations Manager — maintains exclusion list, executes changes.
Approver (A): Brand Safety Lead or Legal — approves new high-impact exclusions (brand or legal risk).
Contributor (C): Performance/Channel Managers — propose placements for review.
Informed (I): Marketing Director & Client Stakeholders — receive weekly reports and major alerts.

Plug-and-play SOP: Step-by-step template

Use the following step sequence as your canonical process. Each step includes expected artifacts and timeframes.

Detection & Proposal (0–4 hours)
- Source signals: automated alerts (analytics anomaly detection, brand safety provider), manual QA, creative reports, or publisher complaints.
- Contributor fills Exclusion Proposal Form (template below) and tags urgency (low/medium/high).
Initial Triage (4–8 hours)
- Ad Ops validates evidence (screenshot, URL, YouTube video ID, app bundle ID, placement ID).
- If high urgency (brand or legal risk), proceed to emergency block; otherwise route to Approver.
Approval (8–24 hours)
- Approver reviews proposal and either: Approve, Request More Info, or Reject.
- Approved items proceed to Implementation. Keep decision logged in change log.
Implementation (within 1 business day)
- Ad Ops executes exclusion in account-level exclusion list via UI, Google Ads Editor bulk upload, or Google Ads API (see implementation methods below).
- Tag entry with metadata: reason, category, requester, approver, effective date, notes.
Verification & Monitoring (24–72 hours)
- Confirm placement no longer receives spend across eligible campaigns using placement reports and 24–72 hour ad delivery checks.
- Record verification artifacts (screenshots, report exports) in the audit folder.
Audit & Review (weekly/monthly)
- Weekly: automated scan for blocked placements triggering new traffic sources; review exceptions.
- Monthly: governance review to retire obsolete entries and review policy decisions.

Implementation methods: UI, Editor, and API

Choose an implementation path based on scale and velocity.

Google Ads UI (best for low volume or emergency blocks)

Navigate to Settings > Placements > Account-level exclusions (new centralized setting).
Click Add > enter placement (domain, app bundle, YouTube channel/video ID).
Attach metadata in your internal change log (UI does not store custom metadata).

Google Ads Editor (best for bulk uploads with audit trails)

Export current placement exclusions from the account.
Append new rows to the CSV using this standard format: placement,type,reason,requester,approver,effective_date,notes.
Import CSV and post changes. Keep the CSV in your version-controlled repository.

Google Ads API (best for automation and multi-account management)

Use the Google Ads API to automate updates across MCC (manager) accounts. Pseudocode example:

<code>// Pseudocode: add account-level placement exclusion
apiClient.authenticate(credentials)
apiClient.selectCustomer(accountId)
exclusion = {placement: "example.com", type: "DOMAIN", reason: "brand_safety", metadata: {requester: "alice", approver: "bob"}}
apiClient.accountExclusions.create(exclusion)
// Log response & write to audit DB
</code>

Ensure your implementation writes change events to an internal audit database (timestamp, user, operation, evidence link). In 2026, mature teams integrate these events with SIEM or governance platforms for cross-team visibility.

Exclusion taxonomy and naming conventions

Use a predictable taxonomy to make review and automation simpler.

Type: DOMAIN | APP_BUNDLE | YOUTUBE_CHANNEL | YOUTUBE_VIDEO | PLACEMENT_ID
Category: brand_safety | low_quality | competitor_block | regulatory | negative_keyword_infringement
Naming: YYYYMMDD_category_shortdesc_requester (e.g., 20260115_brand_safety_piracy_alice)

Exclusion Proposal Form (template)

Embed this form into your ticketing system (Jira/Asana) or use a shared Google Form.

Requester name & team
Placement identifier (URL, app bundle, YouTube ID)
Type (from taxonomy)
Category (from taxonomy)
Why this should be excluded (evidence & screenshots)
Urgency (low/medium/high)
Suggested duration (permanent/temporary until date)

Checklist: Pre-implementation & verification

Use this checklist to avoid false positives and operational mistakes.

Is the placement correctly identified (domain vs subdomain vs path)?
Is evidence attached (screenshot, timestamped URL, placement report row)?
Has approver been notified and given signoff?
Is there an exception workflow if a performance-critical placement is impacted?
Have you scheduled verification checks and logged them?
Is the entry added to the change log with metadata?

Case study: How a retail brand reduced unsafe spend by 78% in 6 weeks

Background: A national retailer running 200+ campaigns across Search, Display, YouTube and Performance Max experienced unexpected YouTube placements that conflicted with seasonal promotions. Manual campaign-level exclusions were inconsistent and slow.

Action taken:

Implemented the SOP above and centralized exclusions into one account-level list.
Automated detection with host-level analytics alerts and a brand safety provider integration that pushed proposed exclusions into the ticketing tool.
Set SLA: emergency block in 4 hours, standard blocks within 24 hours.

Results (6 weeks):

78% reduction in impressions on the identified unsafe placements.
30% faster mean time-to-block.
Improved CPA in Performance Max campaigns (+12% efficiency) because blocked low-quality inventory stopped skewing automated bidding signals.

Lesson: Centralized exclusions not only protect brand safety but also improve automation outcomes by feeding cleaner signals into Google’s machine learning models in 2026.

Governance: Retention, review cadence, and exceptions

Retention: Keep a full change log for at least 24 months — regulatory teams and auditors often ask for long windows. Store evidence artifacts (screenshots, placement reports) for the same period.

Review cadence:

Weekly: Quick sweep for emergency blocks and anomalies.
Monthly: Review extraneous or stale exclusions, and retire ones with no match since being added.
Quarterly: Policy review with Legal and Brand Safety to adjust taxonomy and SLAs.

Exceptions: Some placements might be performance-critical. Create an exceptions workflow where channel owners can request a temporary whitelist with compensating controls (reduced budget, creative restrictions, or frequency caps). Document every exception with an expiration.

Automation & integrations (2026 best practices)

In 2026, advanced ad ops teams automate exclusion operations and integrate them into observability stacks:

Automated detection: Integrate brand safety providers and first-party analytics to send suspected placements to your exclusion ticket queue via webhook.
API-driven updates: Use Google Ads API and a centralized microservice to push exclusions to multiple accounts and log responses in a central audit database.
Dashboards: Build a dashboard (Looker/Datastudio/Sigma) showing blocked placements, time-to-block, and any delivery attempts.
SIEM/Compliance export: Forward critical events to SIEM for enterprise governance and incident response teams.

Common pitfalls and how to avoid them

Pitfall: Blocking entire domains when only a path is problematic. Fix: Confirm the minimal blocking scope — subdomain/path if supported.
Pitfall: No metadata captured in the UI. Fix: Use a repository (CSV/DB) to track requesters, approvers, and reasons.
Pitfall: Over-blocking that reduces scale and harms automation. Fix: Use temporary blocks with review dates and exceptions with controls.
Pitfall: Not monitoring the impact on automated campaigns. Fix: Monitor CPA and conversion rate changes post-block and iterate.

Sample change log format (CSV)

<code>id,created_at,placement,type,category,requester,approver,status,effective_date,expiry_date,notes
1,2026-01-15,example.com,DOMAIN,brand_safety,alice,bob,active,2026-01-15,,screenshot_20260115.png
2,2026-01-20,UC_xxx,YOUTUBE_CHANNEL,low_quality,jane,bob,active,2026-01-20,2026-04-20,high_ctr_low_conversions
</code>

Measuring success

Track these metrics after rolling out the SOP:

Time-to-block (median hours from detection to account-level exclusion)
% of suspected placements successfully blocked
Change in CPA and ROAS for campaigns that were receiving excluded inventory
Number of exceptions requested and approved per quarter

2026 trends and future-proofing your SOP

Expect these trends to shape placement governance through 2026 and beyond:

Greater automation reliance: As Google continues to push automation, clean inventory signals are critical — account-level exclusions help protect ML models from noisy inputs.
Cross-channel guardrails: Expect centralized controls to expand to other platforms; design your SOP to be platform-agnostic.
Privacy-driven targeting limits: With evolving privacy constraints, contextual and placement controls will grow in importance — keep taxonomy flexible.
AI-assisted detection: Adopt AI tools that surface risky placements automatically, but keep human review for high-impact decisions.

“Account-level placement exclusions are a governance game-changer. The SOP you build around them determines whether they become a safety net or a blindspot.” — Ad Ops Leader, 2026

Quick-start implementation checklist (printable)

Assign Ad Ops Owner and Brand Safety Approver
Deploy Exclusion Proposal Form to your ticketing system
Create initial exclusion taxonomy and naming convention
Run a one-time inventory scan to propose initial blocks
Implement initial exclusions and log them in the change log
Set weekly verification and monthly governance reviews
Integrate with analytics & brand safety provider for automated detection

Final takeaways

Account-level placement exclusions introduced by Google in 2026 solve a core ad ops problem: fragmented placement controls. But tools require process. Use the SOP above to centralize decision-making, automate where it makes sense, and maintain human oversight for policy-sensitive exclusions. With the right governance, exclusions protect brand safety and improve automated bidding outcomes by feeding cleaner signals into Google’s ML systems.

Call to action

Ready to implement this SOP in your account? Download our editable Exclusion Proposal Form and CSV templates, or book a 30-minute audit with our ad operations experts to tailor the SOP to your account structure. Contact us to get started and secure your automation pipelines.

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