You export a placement report and scroll past names you never heard of. Game apps with three-letter titles. Coupon sites that list expired deals. Content farms that rewrite the same headline six ways. Each one charged you before you knew it existed.
Excluding irrelevant websites and apps is one of the most practical brand safety skills you can build. It is less about theory and more about a repeatable habit: find the source, confirm it adds no value, block it, check again next month. Here is a clear process you can run on any display or app-enabled campaign.
How do you exclude irrelevant websites and apps?
Start with data from placement or site reports in your ad account. Sort by spend or impressions and look for sources with high volume and weak on-site behavior. Irrelevant does not always mean offensive. A harmless cooking blog is still irrelevant if you sell commercial insurance.
Confirm irrelevance with at least two signals: zero or near-zero conversions, very short visit duration, and content that clearly mismatches your offer. One odd click is not enough to exclude. Patterns over one or two weeks justify action.
1. Build a master exclusion list
Keep one spreadsheet or shared document of excluded domains, app IDs, and channel names. When any campaign finds a bad source, add it for the whole account. Duplicate exclusions across campaigns waste time and leave gaps.
2. Exclude at the highest level available
Account-level placement exclusions protect every current and future campaign. Use campaign-level exclusions only when a source is irrelevant to one offer but fine for another. Higher-level blocks reduce maintenance.
3. Separate mobile apps from websites
App placements appear under app names, not URLs. Mobile games and utility apps often dominate spend without producing leads. Exclude app categories that repeat the same empty click pattern if individual titles are too numerous to manage one by one.
4. Re-check after major setting changes
New audiences, new creative, or loosened targeting can unlock fresh inventory. Run a placement audit two weeks after any major change. Old blocklists do not cover new delivery paths.
When exclusion is not the right move
Do not exclude a high-spend placement that converts just because the site looks cheap. Ugly pages sometimes produce buyers. Exclude on evidence, not aesthetics. Likewise, avoid blocking broad categories that include sites your customers actually use unless data supports it.
For display network filters, read display network placement control. For low quality networks that supply many bad placements at once, see avoiding low quality publisher networks. Reputation-focused exclusion habits are covered in the chapter on protecting brand reputation through exclusions.
Frequently asked questions
How many placements should I exclude at once?
There is no fixed limit, but batch exclusions after reviewing at least a full week of data. Excluding hundreds of sites on day one without evidence can remove useful reach. Let spend patterns guide the list.
Can I import a blocklist from another advertiser?
Industry blocklists can seed your exclusions, but your campaign data should still drive final decisions. A site bad for one niche may work for another. Start from shared lists, then customize with your reports.
What if I exclude a site and conversions drop?
Remove that exclusion and watch for a week. Sometimes a rough-looking placement still produces buyers. Exclusions are reversible. Let conversion data override first impressions.
How do I track results after exclusions?
Compare cost per result and on-site engagement before and after you update blocklists. WEMASY's website builder connects landing pages to analytics so you can see whether remaining traffic engages more deeply.
Do exclusions help brand safety or just performance?
Both. Irrelevant placements waste money and can sit next to content that hurts trust. Read unsafe content and harmful ad placements for categories where reputation risk is the main reason to block.
Should search campaigns use placement exclusions too?
Search campaigns that expand to partner sites or display networks need the same site reviews as native display campaigns. Pure search results pages need search term and keyword exclusions instead. Match the tool to the inventory type.