Our Video Ad Safety Promise is that certain types of content can’t be monetised for ads on YouTube and Google video partners: we'll automatically apply exclusions to prevent your ads from showing on the most controversial content, such as terrorist acts, nudity and recent sensitive events.
The content exclusion settings described below – inventory types, content types and digital content labels – are meant to give you additional control and help you exclude types of content that, while in compliance with our policies, may not fit your brand or business. While content exclusions are done to the best of our ability, we can't guarantee that all related content will be excluded.
This article provides an overview of content exclusion settings for Video campaigns. Learn more about setting up content exclusions for video campaigns.
Content exclusion settings
You can use the following content exclusion settings for your video campaigns, both at the account level or individual campaign level.
With inventory types, you can opt out of groups of sensitive content that don’t align with the brand or message of your campaign.
You can select from the following three inventory types. You can also view more details about what content types are included and excluded for each inventory type.
Expanded inventory
This option lets you show ads on all videos on YouTube and Google video partners that meet our standards for monetisation. This option may be an appropriate choice for brands that want maximum access to the full breadth of videos eligible for ads, including, for example, videos that have strong profanity in the context of comedy or a documentary, or excessive violence as featured in video games.
Standard inventory (recommended)
All Google Ads accounts are opted in to this inventory type by default. This option lets you show ads across a wide range of content that’s appropriate for most brands, such as popular music videos, documentaries and film trailers. The content you can show ads on is based on our advertiser-friendly content guidelines that take into account, for example, the strength or frequency of profanity, or the appropriateness of subject matter like sensitive events. Ads won’t show, for example, on content with repeated strong profanity, strong sexual content or graphic violence.
Limited inventory
This option lets you show ads on a reduced range of content that’s appropriate for brands with particularly strict guidelines around inappropriate language and sexual suggestiveness – above and beyond what our advertiser-friendly content guidelines address. The videos accessible in this inventory type meet heightened requirements, especially for inappropriate language and sexual suggestiveness. For example, your ads will be excluded from showing on some of YouTube's most popular music videos and other pop culture content across YouTube and Google video partners.
Video Ad Safety Promise and inventory type content details
Video Ad Safety Promise
Your ads automatically will be excluded from showing on the following types of content, no matter what inventory type you choose.
| Video content | Expanded inventory | Standard inventory | Limited inventory |
| Profanity in the title or thumbnail image, or profanity used repeatedly or throughout | Excluded | Excluded | Excluded |
| Full nudity, exposed nipples, animal mating, sexual abuse or sexual content in the thumbnail | Excluded | Excluded | Excluded |
| Content showing abusing, buying, making, selling or finding drugs |
Excluded | Excluded | Excluded |
|
Content discussing terrorism or sensitive current events like war, death or tragedy Note: If these types of content are posted from authoritative news sources and comply with our advertiser-friendly content guidelines, these can run in 'Standard inventory'. |
Excluded | Excluded | Excluded |
Profanity
| Video content | Expanded inventory | Standard inventory | Limited inventory |
| Light profanity used in a non-hateful, comedic or artistic way | Included | Included | Included |
| Moderate profanity used in a non-hateful, comedic or artistic manner, or a music video with frequent profanity | Included | Included | Excluded |
| Strong profanity used throughout or at the very beginning of the video in comedy, documentary, news or education | Included | Excluded | Excluded |
Sexualised content
| Video content | Expanded inventory | Standard inventory | Limited inventory |
| Romance, kissing, limited clothing in non-sexual settings or general discussions of relationships or sexuality | Included | Included | Included |
| Limited clothing in sexual settings, sensual dancing, moderate sexually suggestive behaviour or a music video containing sexual content | Included | Included | Excluded |
| Blurred nudity, focus on sexual body parts, focus on sex as a topic, discussions about sex acts, implied or displayed sex acts or sex toys without visible contact or nudity | Included | Excluded | Excluded |
Violence
| Video content | Expanded inventory | Standard inventory | Limited inventory |
| Mild violence or injury without showing blood or graphic content | Included | Included | Included |
| Violence or graphic content in video games, comedy or music videos | Included | Included | Included |
| Focus on blood, gore and excessive violence in video games, animal violence or animation; sports, accidents, pranks or 'fails' with serious injury; blood shown in body modification or medical procedures | Included | Excluded | Excluded |
Drugs
| Video content | Expanded inventory | Standard inventory | Limited inventory |
| Content with humorous references, education, music or statements without glorifying or promoting drugs | Included | Included | Included |
| Drug consumption, fabrication and distribution in the context of music, comedy, news, education or documentary | Included | Excluded | Excluded |
Hurtful language
| Video content | Expanded inventory | Standard inventory | Limited inventory |
| News, documentary or education content with words that could be considered biased, demeaning or hate speech against a race, religion, gender or other group | Included | Excluded | Excluded |
You can exclude specific content types so that your ads don’t run on those content types. This can help you avoid types of content that don’t fit your needs or that your customers don’t visit.
- Embedded YouTube videos: Videos embedded on websites outside YouTube.com
- Live streaming videos: Video of live events streamed over the Internet
Websites, pages, videos and apps on the Display Network and YouTube are analysed by Google classification technology and given a digital content label based on their suitability for various audiences. They’re similar to movie ratings, like G and PG. For your video campaigns, you can exclude specific digital content labels, so that your ads don’t show on content with these labels.
- DL-G: Content suitable for general audiences (can also select 'Content suitable for families')
- DL-PG: Content suitable for most audiences with parental guidance
- DL-T: Content suitable for teen and older audiences
- DL-MA: Content suitable only for mature audiences
- Not yet labelled: Content that hasn’t been labelled yet because they haven’t completed the classification process
Account-level content exclusions let you set exclusions that apply to Video campaigns for your entire account. At the account level, you can select an inventory type, content types, and digital content labels, and they’ll automatically apply to all your Video campaigns.
Note that with inventory types, you’ll have some flexibility. Even after selecting an inventory type at the account level, you'll have the choice to select a more restrictive inventory type for each individual Video campaign. For example, even if you select 'Standard inventory' at the account level for all video campaigns, you can still select 'Limited inventory' for an individual video campaign. However, you won’t be able to select 'Expanded inventory' for the same video campaign, as all video campaigns on the Google Ads account would be limited to 'Standard inventory'.
Examples
- If your account-level inventory type is 'Limited inventory', you’ll have to use the 'Limited inventory' type for all your individual Video campaigns.
- If your account-level inventory type is 'Standard inventory', you can use the 'Standard inventory' or 'Limited inventory' types for individual Video campaigns.
- If your account-level inventory type is 'Expanded inventory', you can choose the 'Expanded inventory', 'Standard inventory' or 'Limited inventory' types for individual Video campaigns.
