Why and How to Exclude Mobile Apps from Your Google Ads Display Campaigns?

Google Ads Display campaigns offer a powerful way to reach warm or cold audiences with visually captivating ads on websites and mobile apps.

However, it is undeniable that mobile apps absorb a disproportionate share of your advertising budget without delivering the expected results. Mastering the exclusion of these apps is imperative to optimize your advertising spend and maximize the performance of your Display campaigns.

Why Exclude Apps from Your Display Campaigns?

Excluding mobile apps from your Google Ads Display campaigns can significantly improve the performance and efficiency of your ads. Here are the main reasons why you should consider this strategy:

1. Click Farms

Click farms are networks of sites or apps designed to artificially generate a large number of clicks on ads. These clicks are often of low quality and do not lead to conversions, thus wasting your advertising budget.

• Impact on Budget: Click farms quickly consume your budget without offering a tangible return on investment.
• Quality of Clicks: Clicks from these sources are rarely qualified, meaning they are unlikely to lead to sales or significant interactions.

2. Smaller Ad Formats

Ads displayed on mobile apps are often smaller and less visible than those displayed on traditional websites. This can reduce their effectiveness for several reasons:

• Reduced Visibility: Smaller ad formats are easily ignored by users, which decreases the click-through rate.
• Limited Engagement: Users are less likely to interact with small ads, which can negatively affect your conversion rates.

3. Interstitial Ads

Interstitial ads are full-screen ads that often appear unexpectedly in mobile apps. Although they capture attention, they have several drawbacks:

• Disrupted User Experience: These ads can be perceived as intrusive and disruptive, leading to user frustration.
• Accidental Clicks: Due to their full-screen placement, users may click on these ads by mistake, resulting in unnecessary ad spend without real engagement.

Excluding mobile apps from your Display campaigns is a crucial strategy to avoid common pitfalls such as click farms, ineffective ad formats, and disruptive interstitial ads. By optimizing your placements, you can ensure that your advertising budget is used more wisely and effectively, thereby improving the overall performance of your campaigns.

How to Know if You Are Running Ads on Mobile Apps?

To determine if your Display campaigns are running on mobile apps, follow these simple steps:

1. Access your Google Ads campaign.
2. Go to the Insights & Reports section.
3. Select “Where and when your ads were shown?”.
4. Click on “Where ads were shown”.

A list of your ad placements will appear, with two types: “Mobile app” and “Site”. Filter by “Mobile app” to see if your ads are running on mobile apps.

How to Quickly Exclude All Mobile Apps?

Method 1: Via Google Ads Interface

1. Access Tools in your Google Ads account.
2. Navigate to Content Compliance.
3. Select Excluded Placements.
4. Choose App Categories.
5. Select all app categories one by one to exclude them.

Method 2: Using the Code “mobileappcategory::69500”

1. In the Google Ads interface, go to your campaign settings.
2. Add “mobileappcategory::69500” in the exclusions to block all mobile apps quickly and easily.

Note that this change will apply to your entire account, affecting all current and future campaigns. Be cautious when launching new Display campaigns and check where your ads are shown to avoid any issues.

Conclusion

Excluding mobile apps from your Google Ads Display campaigns is essential to optimize your budget and improve campaign performance. By using the appropriate tools and methods to manage these exclusions, you can ensure a more effective use of your advertising resources and maximize the impact of your campaigns.