When it comes to managing your AdWords campaigns, it’s all about getting the ROI and bang-for-your-buck. PPC can be a pretty costly exercise if you get it wrong – and one of the biggest mistakes (and wastes of money) we see is the addition (or rather, un-exclusion) of mobile app targeting when setting up and running display campaigns. If you consider the user of a mobile app (eg. someone playing a game on their phone), they’re not likely to have any interest in your product or service; chances are, they’ve accidentally pressed the ad button when trying to catch a Pokemon (you get the gist!).

If you already have a display campaign running in AdWords, you can check how much traffic is coming through these mobile app channels (and how many impressions they’re eating up) by opening your campaign in AdWords and going to Display Network > Placements:

Here is an example of a campaign that hasn’t had mobile apps removed:

Now let’s take a look at the steps to remove these placements. This is really simple – it’ll take you about 5 minutes (if that!).

STEP 1

Go to your Shared Library. This can be located in the left hand panel once you’ve logged in to your AdWords campaign:

STEP 2

Click “View” under Campaign Placement Exclusions.

STEP 3

Click on the red +List button to add your new exclusions list.

STEP 4

Enter a name for the list (“Mobile Apps Exclusion” for example), and then copy/paste this URL into the Placements field: adsenseformobileapps.com

Click “Save”

STEP 5

Next, navigate back to the Placements area in your display campaign.

STEP 6

Scroll to the bottom of the page to find a red “exclusions” button. Click on this button.

STEP 7

Select “Placements” from the Add Campaign Exclusions drop down.

STEP 8

Select your exclusion from the list and click Save.

STEP 9

On navigating back to your campaign placements, you will now see your Mobile App exclusion added.