On What Level Should We Exclude Cities in a Campaign?

Short Answer: You should exclude cities at the campaign level. This approach ensures that if you decide to launch a new campaign for a specific service targeting that city later, your ads will still be able to show up without being blocked by overarching negative keyword settings.

Full Explanation

Excluding cities from an advertising campaign is a strategic decision that directly affects your ability to target audiences. By applying city exclusions at the campaign level, you limit the impact of these exclusions to only the current campaign. This means any future campaigns you create, even for specialized services within those cities, won’t be restricted by previous exclusions.

If you exclude cities on a higher level such as the account or shared negative keyword list, the cities would be blocked across all campaigns. This would prevent your ads from appearing for those cities under any circumstance, even if you want a specific campaign to focus exclusively on them.

Step-by-Step Breakdown

1. Identify cities to exclude for the current campaign based on your goals.
2. Apply exclusions at the campaign level so only this campaign is affected.
3. Launch separate campaigns in the future targeting specific cities, without exclusion conflicts.
4. Manage each campaign independently to maintain flexible targeting.

Real Examples

If you have a campaign for a general service that excludes a particular city, applying this exclusion at the campaign level allows you later to create another campaign focused on a specific service within that excluded city. Since the exclusion only applies to the first campaign, your new campaign can serve ads without restriction.

Common Mistakes

• Excluding cities at the account or higher level, which unintentionally restricts all campaigns from targeting those areas.
• Using negative keywords for cities globally, leading to missed opportunities for city-specific campaigns.
• Failing to structure exclusions carefully, causing loss of potential reach in future campaigns.

FAQs

Q: Why not exclude cities using negative keywords at the account level?
Because it blocks those cities across all campaigns, preventing you from targeting them later in specialized campaigns.

Q: Can I exclude cities at the ad group level instead?
The recommended approach is campaign level exclusion to maintain clear control and flexibility over multiple campaigns.

Key Takeaways

• Always exclude cities at the campaign level to keep exclusions specific and flexible.
• This method preserves the ability to target excluded cities in future, specialized campaigns.
• Avoid broad exclusions that can limit your advertising opportunities across your account.