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Blocking junk Performance Max placements

How to find and block junk Performance Max placements: placement report, account-level and MCC exclusions, content suitability and a monthly routine.

By Gareth Puckey Updated 6 min read Google Ads

In this guide
  1. Where Performance Max actually shows your ads
  2. Seeing placements: placement report vs Channel performance
  3. Blocking sites and apps with account-level exclusions
  4. Content suitability: inventory type, sensitive categories and app categories
  5. Managing several accounts with MCC exclusion lists
  6. What changed in 2025 and 2026
  7. A monthly Performance Max placement routine
  8. FAQ

You block junk Performance Max placements at account or manager-account level, because Performance Max has no campaign-level placement exclusions. Find the apps and sites in the placement report and add them to your excluded placements list. YouTube formats are grouped under “Google owned & operated”, so manage YouTube mainly with inventory type and sensitive content categories.

Key takeaways

  • The Performance Max placement report shows impressions only, and Google says it shouldn’t be used to evaluate performance. Use the Channel performance report for cost and conversions.
  • Exclusions live under Tools > Content suitability, with a limit of 65,000 per account, or in up to three manager account lists of 250,000 entries each.
  • Account and manager account exclusions apply to every campaign in the account, so check before you block anything broad.
  • You can’t exclude Google-owned domains. Inventory type and sensitive content categories are the controls for that inventory.
  • A short monthly routine keeps the list current: placement report, Channel performance, exclusions, settings.

Where Performance Max actually shows your ads

Performance Max can serve across Search, Display, YouTube, Discover, Maps, Gmail and Search partners, and junk can turn up in any of them.

The placement report shows only part of that reach in detail. Search is not a placement, and Gmail, Discover and YouTube formats are grouped under “Google owned & operated”. Search partner sites have been included in the report since March 2024, although their domains only began showing in more accounts in February 2026.

By junk, I mean any placement you wouldn’t choose if you were picking by hand: an app or website that doesn’t fit the brand or the audience. If you manage several accounts, a script can review where Performance Max and display ads ran each weekday and add junk apps, sites and videos to one shared list. It is one of the checks in five Google Ads automations that pay for themselves.

Seeing placements: placement report vs Channel performance

The two reports answer different questions, and mixing them up leads to bad blocks.

Placement report Channel performance
What it shows Where ads appeared: apps and sites, with Google-owned formats grouped Results by channel: Search, Display, YouTube, Discover, Maps, Gmail, Search partners
Metrics Impressions only Impressions, clicks, conversions, conversion value, cost
Use it for Brand safety: spotting placements to exclude Judging whether a channel earns its spend
Path Campaigns > Insights and reports > Report editor > “Performance Max campaigns placement” Campaigns > Insights and reports > Channel performance

The placement report: where your ads appeared

The placement report’s only metric is impressions. Google’s own wording is that “placement reports shouldn’t be used to evaluate performance”, and it positions the report as a brand-safety tool. Use it to answer one question: did my ads appear somewhere I don’t want them?

You can now segment placement reports by network under “When and where ads showed” (reported March 2026). The Search partner domain rollout has been uneven, so if you don’t see those domains yet, the cause may be the rollout itself.

Channel performance: what each channel cost and returned

Channel performance covers seven channels with cost and conversion data. Google announced channel reporting for Performance Max on 30 April 2025, alongside full search terms reporting. If you want to know whether Display or Search partners are earning their spend, look here before you start blocking.

Blocking sites and apps with account-level exclusions

Account-level exclusions sit under Tools > Content suitability > Advanced settings > Excluded placements. They apply to Performance Max, and Google states that Performance Max will respect all account-level and MCC-level placement exclusions.

The steps:

  1. Export the placement report for the period you’re reviewing.
  2. Mark the apps and websites you wouldn’t choose.
  3. Format app IDs correctly: iOS apps use mobileapp::1- and Android apps use mobileapp::2-, followed by the app ID.
  4. Upload to Excluded placements. The limits are 20,000 per upload and 65,000 per account.
  5. Check back the next day. New exclusions usually take effect within 12 hours.

Watch the reach of an account-level block

An account-level exclusion applies across the account, so it also affects Display, Video, Demand Gen and Search partner traffic from other campaigns. That’s usually what you want for genuine junk. Be more careful with broad blocks, such as every app category, if your customers do use apps.

What a list can’t block

You can’t exclude Google-owned domains, and Performance Max has no campaign-level exclusions anyway, so a placement list won’t take your ads off YouTube. The settings below are the way to manage that inventory.

Content suitability: inventory type, sensitive categories and app categories

Content suitability settings shape where ads can run without you naming each placement.

One older setting has gone. Parked domains stopped being a Search partner surface on 10 February 2026, and the content suitability option for them was removed, so you can delete that step from any old checklist.

Managing several accounts with MCC exclusion lists

A manager account (MCC) can hold up to three placement exclusion lists of up to 250,000 entries each, and linked accounts inherit them. If you run more than a handful of accounts, that saves repeated uploads.

With one shared MCC list, a junk app found in one account is blocked in every account linked to that list. The same caution applies at scale: a broad block on the shared list needs to suit every linked account.

If you automate any of this, keep a person checking what gets added, as I explain in using AI in a marketing workflow without losing control.

What changed in 2025 and 2026

The dated changes worth knowing:

Most of these are keyword, audience and reporting changes, and placement blocking still runs through the exclusions and settings above. If you add shared negative lists to Performance Max, check when a negative keyword blocks your best keyword before you rely on them.

A monthly Performance Max placement routine

For a single account, I’d suggest starting with a monthly check and tightening it if the placement report keeps turning up junk:

  1. Run the placement report for the month, segmented by network, and mark any apps and sites you wouldn’t choose.
  2. Open Channel performance and check cost and conversions by channel before drawing conclusions about Display, YouTube or Search partners.
  3. Add the junk to your account-level list or MCC list, with app IDs in mobileapp::1- or mobileapp::2- format.
  4. Check your totals against the limits: 65,000 per account, 250,000 per MCC list.
  5. Review inventory type and sensitive content categories, and confirm nothing broad is blocking traffic you want.
  6. Check the next day that new exclusions have taken effect.

FAQ

Can you add placement exclusions to a Performance Max campaign?

Not at campaign level. Performance Max has no campaign-level placement exclusions, but it respects account-level and MCC-level exclusions. Add them under Tools > Content suitability, or to a manager account list.

Can you stop Performance Max showing ads on YouTube?

Placement exclusions won’t do it. Google-owned domains can’t be excluded, and YouTube formats are grouped under “Google owned & operated” in the placement report. Manage YouTube mainly with inventory type and sensitive content categories.

Why does the Performance Max placement report only show impressions?

Google built it as a brand-safety tool and says it shouldn’t be used to evaluate performance. For clicks, cost and conversions, use Channel performance, which reports at channel level.

For the wider picture, see my guide to how Google Ads works for lead generation.

11 sources, all opened and checked
  1. Performance Max placement report, Google Ads Help
  2. Placement exclusions: account-level and manager account lists, Google Ads Help
  3. Brand safety and content suitability for Performance Max, Google Ads Help
  4. Excluding apps and app categories, Google Ads Help
  5. Channel performance report, Google Ads Help
  6. Channel performance reporting coming to Performance Max, Google
  7. New Performance Max features in 2025, Google
  8. Performance Max controls update, Google Ads Help
  9. Search partners and parked domains, Google Ads Help
  10. Google Ads surfaces PMax Search partner domains in placement report, Search Engine Journal
  11. Google adds new Performance Max controls and reporting features, Search Engine Journal

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