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The short answer
An account that spends outside Search and has never excluded a single site, app, YouTube channel or content type has refused nothing. Oppy flags it when money went to placements recently and none of its campaigns excludes a placement, app, channel or content type.
Why it matters
On Search, a bad match costs a click. On Display and YouTube, a bad placement can take a real share of a budget before anyone notices, because the list of places an ad ran can hold tens of thousands of rows and nobody reads it.
Content labels count too. An account that has never excluded one sensitive content category has not decided it is happy to appear beside all of them. It has simply never been asked.
How Oppy decides
The check only runs when the account actually spent on placements, that is on Display, video or Demand Gen inventory, in the period.
It reads the exclusions set on each campaign, at account level, and in the shared exclusion lists your live campaigns use.
Checks that weigh money or clicks judge what they find on your own account's numbers, not on one figure applied to every account, so what counts as a problem on a small account is not the same on a large one. Checks on settings read how the account is set up.
When there is too little to go on, the check says so instead of guessing. A finding always comes with the rows behind it, so you can read the evidence before you decide.
| This check | |
|---|---|
| Step of the audit | Structure |
| What it reads | Campaign targeting and exclusions |
| Needs trustworthy conversions | No. It does not wait for the tracking step. |
| What happens next | Reported in the audit with the rows behind it. The decision stays with you. |
Check it yourself in Google Ads
- In Google Ads, open Campaigns, then Audiences, keywords and content, then Content, then Exclusions.
- Check for excluded placements, topics and content types at account and campaign level.
- Open Tools, then Shared library, then Exclusion lists, and see whether a placement exclusion list exists and is attached.
- Open Insights and reports, then When and where ads showed, on the Where ads showed tab, sort by cost, and read the top of the list.
What to do about it
Start with the obvious: exclude mobile app categories you never chose, sensitive content you would not want beside your brand, and the placements at the top of the Where ads showed report that spent and returned nothing.
Keep them in a shared exclusion list, so every new Display or Video campaign gets them from day one. Review the placement report once a month.
Terms on this page
Other checks in this area
The checks next to this one in Wasted spend, each with its own page.