On YouTube TV, advertisers can exclude their ads from appearing in different places, such as topics or themes, networks or channels, and programs or TV shows.
How YouTube TV exclusions work
| Exclusions | Reservations & Display and Video 360 Programmatic Guaranteed | Google Ads: Instant Reserve | Display and Video 360 Instant Reserve |
|---|---|---|---|
| Topic or category of content (for example, Comedy) | 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. |
No Topics have been deprecated in Google Ads. We suggest using excluded content themes instead. |
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. |
| Excluded content themes | No We don't offer excluded content themes in direct reservation or Display and Video 360 yet. |
Yes You can exclude content themes that may not suit your brand, like religion or politics. |
No We don't offer excluded content themes in direct reservation or Display and Video 360 yet. |
| 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. |
|
| Program or TV show | Yes You can exclude up to 200 programs or TV shows at the advertiser level. |
No You can’t exclude YouTube TV at the program or TV show level. |
|
| Episode | No You can’t exclude YouTube TV at the episode level. |
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Excluded content themes
Content theme exclusions help prevent your ads from showing on videos, websites, or apps related to specific themes that may not suit your brand, like religion, politics, or video games that feature mature content, among others. You can access excluded content themes under “Advanced settings” on the Content suitability page of your Google Ads account.
Channel exclusions
For auction and reservation buys through Google Ads and Display and Video 360, 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.
- In your Google Ads account, click the Tools icon
.
- Click Content suitability in the section menu.
- Under “Advanced settings”, click the Excluded placements dropdown.
- You can add the placements you want to exclude in 2 ways:
- In the search bar under “Browse”, enter a word, phrase, YouTube channel ID, or video URL and tick the checkboxes next to the YouTube channels or videos, websites, and apps that you want to exclude.
- In the search bar on “Enter”, enter or paste YouTube channel IDs or URLs line by line then click Add placements.
- Note: This will allow you to enter multiple placements at the same time.
- 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.
For TV show level exclusions, reach out to your Google representative so they can help you add relevant exclusions. Note that this is only available in direct reservation buys.
Limitations
- Episode exclusions: You can’t exclude your ads at the episode level, whether it’s for auction or reservation.
- Standard and Limited inventories: Cable inventory from YouTube TV won’t correspond to Standard inventory or Limited inventory. This means using Limited inventory won't change where your ads appear on YouTube TV.
