On YouTube TV, advertisers can exclude their ads from appearing in different places, such as digital content labels, topics or categories, networks or channels, and programs or TV shows.
How YouTube TV exclusions work
| Exclusions |
Reservations & Display and Video 360 Programmatic Guaranteed |
Google Ads: Auction or Instant Reserve |
Display and Video 360 Auction or Instant Reserve |
|---|---|---|---|
|
YouTube TV |
Yes, with an upcharge |
No You can’t exclude YouTube TV altogether within Auction or Instant Reserve. |
You can’t exclude YouTube TV in Auction or Instant Reserve deals for Run of YouTube. However, you can accept an upcharge to enable exclusions in YouTube Select Reservation buys via Display and Video 360 Instant Reserve. |
| Digital content label (for example, TV-14) |
Yes, with an upcharge You can exclude digital content labels or ratings on YouTube TV for Reserve buys. This is done when creating the campaign through your Google representative. |
Yes, with an upcharge You can have digital content label exclusions enabled for your overall Auction campaign and it’ll apply automatically to YouTube TV. |
|
|
Topic or category of content |
Yes You can exclude topics or categories of content on YouTube TV for Reserve buys. There’s no upper limit, but note that topic exclusions will apply to the whole campaign. |
Yes You can have topics or categories of content exclusions enabled for your overall Auction campaign. It’ll apply automatically to YouTube TV. There’s no upper limit. |
|
| Network or channel | No You can’t exclude YouTube TV at the TV network or channel level for Reserve buys. |
Yes You can exclude up to 10 network channels at an account level without an upcharge. |
|
|
Program or TV show |
Yes You can exclude up to 200 programs or TV shows at the advertiser level for reserved media placement buys. |
No You can’t exclude YouTube TV at the program or TV show level for Auction or Instant Reserve buys. |
|
| Episode | No You can’t exclude YouTube TV at the episode level for either Reserve, Auction, or Instant Reserve buys. |
||
Digital content label exclusions
You can exclude digital content labels or ratings, so that your ads don’t appear with channels or programs tagged with that digital content label.
| Available in Connect Reserve |
Corresponding TV rating |
Corresponding movie rating |
|---|---|---|
|
General Audiences (DL-G) |
TV-G | G |
| Audiences with parental guidance (DL-PG) | TV-PG | PG |
|
Teen and older audiences (DL-T) |
TV-14 | PG-13 |
| Mature audiences (DL-MA) | TV-MA | R, NC-17 |
Topic or category exclusions
Topic exclusions are consistent across YouTube Select, including YouTube TV. Topic exclusions on YouTube Select will extend to YouTube TV inventory. This means that you can exclude “News” as a topic or lineup on YouTube Select run of lineups, and your ad won’t serve against content labeled as “News”. However, an ad may serve on a “News” network but against content that isn’t labeled “News”. For example, a campaign excluding “News” may serve an ad on CNN content that isn’t labeled “News”.
Exclude YouTube TV programs about a specific topic
Just as you can target YouTube TV programs about certain subjects, such as "cars" or "music", you can also exclude by topic to keep your ads off YouTube TV programs whose themes aren't relevant to your customers.
Example
A travel agency has an ad group that features ads about various types of tours. They decide to target the topic “Travel”, but exclude the topic “News”, since it’s less relevant to their offerings. Even if the ad appears on a news channel, it will run only when a non-news program is running on the same channel. In this example, the ad appears on a news network, but not on any content labeled “News”.
- In your Google Ads account, click the Campaigns icon
.
- Click the Audiences, keywords, and content drop down in the section menu.
- Click Content.
- Click the drop-down menu, then choose Campaign or Ad group.
- Click the pencil icon
, then choose a campaign or an ad group from the list that appears.
- Select the topics that you want to exclude.
- Click Save.
Channel exclusions
For Reserve buys though Connect Reserve, you can’t exclude YouTube TV at the TV network or channel level. However, you can submit a request for review. You can’t specifically target individual YouTube TV channels either.
For auction and reservation buys through Google Ads and DV360, you can opt out of up to 10 channels or networks at their channel ID level following the same process as negatively targeting channels on YouTube.
- If you have a channel in your placement report that you’d prefer not to run against, you can block it at the account level following the standard process. Note that channel exclusions can’t be applied at the ad group or campaign level.
- If you want to preemptively exclude a channel for YouTube TV, you can do so using the channel ID. To find the channel ID, search for “YouTube TV [channel name]” and select the YouTube TV result. The ID is at the end of the URL.
You can check the list of YouTube TV channels where your ads will run. Note that these channels will only potentially launch. There’s no guarantee that they will launch, or that ads will serve against all channels in this spreadsheet. There’s also no guarantee that campaigns will run on a specific channel, even if the channel is in this list. Learn more about how to Exclude YouTube TV channels from your campaign.
Exclude YouTube TV channels from your campaigns
You can exclude up to 10 YouTube TV channels where you don't want your ads to show. In particular, you might exclude your ads from running on YouTube TV channels that aren’t appropriate for your brand.
- In your Google Ads account, click the Tools icon
.
- Click Content suitability in the section menu.
- Under “Advanced settings”, click the Excluded placements dropdown.
- Enter the YouTube channel ID that you want to exclude. To exclude multiple YouTube channel IDs, click Enter and add your list of channel IDs.
- Click Save.
How do I find the YouTube channel ID?
From your computer, go to YouTube TV and click Channels. From here, click See all channels, then right-click the channel you want to exclude. Select Copy link address, then paste the URL. In this URL, the letters and numbers that appear after the channel name is the channel ID.
For example, Ahmad wants to exclude “Channel A” from his campaign. On the YouTube TV website, he goes to the “Channel A” page.
- The full URL for Channel A is: "tv.youtube.com/browse/channel-a-UC2_YYzXYcABtfySSCDSkO8B".
- In Google Ads, Ahmad enters "UC2_YYzXYcABtfySSCDSkO8B" as the channel ID.
You'll be able to verify the placement exclusion on the "Change history" page when you view changes at the account level. New placement exclusions typically take effect within 12 hours.
Limitations
- Episode exclusions: You can’t exclude your ads at the episode level, whether it’s for auction or reservation.
- Lineup exclusions: Because TV isn’t classified into lineups, any lineup exclusion on your YouTube Select won’t apply to YouTube TV. The lineup exclusion will still apply to YouTube content.
- Standard and Limited modes: Cable inventory from YouTube TV won’t correspond to Standard mode or Limited mode. YouTube TV isn’t eligible for Limited mode, even if you’re opted into Limited mode for YouTube advertising.
- Competitive separation: Currently, there’s no product solution for competitive separation.
