How to Use Google Ads Account-Level Placement Exclusions with Branded Short Links

Cut wasted spend and protect your brand by pairing Google Ads account-level placement exclusions with branded short links

Hook: If your campaigns are bleeding clicks on low-quality sites or your long tracking URLs are scaring away users, this guide shows exactly how to combine Google Ads new account-level placement exclusions with branded short domains to stop bad inventory, keep CTR high, and preserve brand trust in 2026.

Why this matters in 2026

Late 2025 and early 2026 brought two big shifts that change link and inventory strategy for paid media teams. First, Google Ads introduced account-level placement exclusions, centralizing control over where your ads can appear across Performance Max, Demand Gen, YouTube, and Display. Second, privacy and measurement changes pushed marketers to server-side and first-party tracking, making how you route clicks more important than ever.

Google Ads introduced account-level placement exclusions to block unwanted inventory across all campaigns from a single setting. Source Search Engine Land January 15 2026

Together these changes mean you can and should manage both inventory and link routing at account scale. Do it right and you reduce wasted spend, keep automation safe, and improve user trust by using concise, branded short links instead of unwieldy tracking URLs.

At-a-glance playbook

1. Run a placement audit to identify poor inventory.
2. Create an account-level placement exclusion list and apply it across eligible campaigns.
3. Register and configure a branded short domain for ads and tracking.
4. Set redirect rules that preserve gclid and UTM parameters and support parallel tracking.
5. Replace test campaign URLs with branded short links and monitor CTR and conversions.
6. Automate ongoing cleanup using scripts or the Google Ads API and short link platform webhooks.

Step 1. Audit placements and identify problem inventory

Start by finding where your ads got low-quality traffic in the last 90 days. Focus on Display Performance Max and YouTube placement reports. Pull these reports from Google Ads and your analytics platform.

• Metrics to look at per placement: spend, impressions, clicks, CTR, conversions, cost per conversion, and viewability.
• Flag placements where cost per conversion is 2x your target or where CTR and viewability are exceptionally low and bounce rate is high.
• Prioritize placements appearing across multiple campaigns or channels.

Actionable threshold example

• Exclude placements with cost per conversion at least 200 percent of target and less than 0.5 percent CTR.
• Exclude placements with viewability under 30 percent and session duration below 10 seconds.

Step 2. Build and apply an account-level placement exclusion list

Account-level exclusions are a major efficiency win. Use them to block repeat offenders once and for all.

How to create the exclusion list

1. Open the Google Ads account and go to the shared library or setup area where placement exclusions live.
2. Create a new placement exclusion list and add the domains, apps, and YouTube channels from your audit.
3. Name your list clearly for governance, for example strong brand safety exclusions Q1 2026.
4. Apply the exclusion list at the account level so Display Performance Max Demand Gen and YouTube inherit it.

Tip: keep a staging list for experimental exclusions before pushing to account level to avoid over-blocking high-performing niches.

Step 3. Choose and configure a branded short domain

Branded short links improve CTR trust and make ads look professional instead of showing long tracking blobs. They also give you control over redirects and telemetry, which is crucial in a world moving to server-side measurement.

Selecting the domain

• Pick a short memorable domain that aligns with your brand. Examples include abbreviations or brand plus action like gobrand or brndly.
• Prefer domains that are obviously associated with your brand to increase trust and avoid spam flags.
• Register multiple related short domains if you run international or multi-product campaigns.

Technical setup

• Configure DNS to point to your short link platform or to your redirect servers.
• Provision SSL so every short link is served over HTTPS.
• Harden domain reputation before launch. Create a basic privacy policy and an index landing page explaining the vanity domain purpose.

Step 4. Implement redirects that preserve tracking and work with Google Ads

Redirect behavior is the critical link between branded short domains and accurate campaign measurement. Errors here break gclid passing and damage conversion tracking.

Best practices for redirects in 2026

• Preserve query parameters including gclid and utm_ parameters. Never drop parameters on redirect.
• Use server-side redirects. Client-side redirects add latency and can break parallel tracking.
• Use 301 or 302 that preserves query strings. Many teams use 301 for SEO but 302 or 307 are fine for tracking redirects so long as query forwarding is enabled.
• Confirm parallel tracking compatibility. Google requires parallel tracking for speed in many ad accounts so your short links must return quickly and hand off tracking without blocking the landing page load.

Implementation tip: route clicks through a server-side endpoint that logs the click and then issues a fast 302 redirect including all original query parameters. Use async event ingestion to your analytics pipeline to avoid delaying the redirect.

Step 5. Decide where to put the short link in Google Ads

There are two common patterns. Choose based on policy and testing comfort.

Pattern A final URL uses a branded short link

• Set the final URL in the ad to the branded short link which then redirects to your landing page.
• Pros: ad shows a concise domain if allowed; straightforward to swap destinations without changing the ad copy.
• Cons: Google policy requires that the domain in your ad matches the landing domain in many cases. Test carefully and document the landing experience to avoid disapprovals.

Pattern B use Google Ads tracking templates with branded redirect domains

• Keep the final URL as the real landing page while using tracking templates to append a branded short redirect for click measurement.
• Pros: keeps landing domain transparency intact and often avoids policy pitfalls. Makes A B testing safer.
• Cons: slightly more setup and you must ensure templates preserve gclid and utm terms.

Practical recommendation: pilot Pattern B on a subset of campaigns while validating ad approvals and conversion consistency. Once validated, rollout Pattern A where it yields clear CTR improvements and passes policy checks.

Step 6. Migrate and test in stages

1. Start with a low-risk campaign or a branded search campaign where click value is high and traffic is predictable.
2. Compare metrics for the original long tracking URL vs the branded short link over at least one test period or sample of 5 000 clicks.
3. Validate gclid preservation and conversion attribution in Google Ads and your analytics provider.
4. Check ad approvals and domain verification status in Google Ads to ensure no policy issues.

Key validation checklist

• Are conversions attributed identically to before?
• Is CTR equal or improved?
• Are there any ad disapprovals for domain mismatch?
• Is parallel tracking functioning without latency?

Step 7. Ongoing maintenance and automation

Account-level exclusions and short link routing require continuous governance. Manual changes will not scale.

Automation ideas

• Use the Google Ads API or scripts to export placement reports weekly. Automatically add placements meeting your exclusion thresholds to a draft exclusion list.
• Integrate your short link platform webhooks with your analytics and CRM to capture click events and suspicious activity in real time.
• Set alerts for sudden spikes in clicks from unknown placements or countries and temporarily add them to a quarantine exclusion list.

Example workflow for automated exclusions

1. Nightly job pulls last 7 days placement report.
2. Script applies rule: add placement to draft if CPA > 2x target and conversions less than 3.
3. Team receives digest and approves before final push to account-level list on Mondays.

Security and brand safety for short links

Short domains can be abused. Protect them proactively so you do not trade one risk for another.

• Lock DNS and registrar accounts behind MFA and a small set of admins.
• Monitor domain reputation and blocklist status through daily checks.
• Issue usage policies and restrict who can create public short links. Use approval workflows for ad campaigns.
• Use rate limiting and bot detection on click endpoints to prevent click fraud and sudden spikes that might trigger unwanted exclusions.

Measurement strategy for 2026

Privacy changes and the rise of server-side measurement mean you should plan for multi-touch approaches.

• Server-side click tracking: ingest click events server-side and forward to GA4 measurement protocol or your conversion API to preserve attribution without relying on third-party cookies.
• Use first-party cookies and hashed identifiers where permitted to stitch sessions across clicks and devices.
• Keep your Google Ads conversions and your internal event ingestion reconciled weekly and measure discrepancies.

Case study example

Acme SaaS ran a three month pilot after excluded 120 low quality placements at the account level and deployed a branded short domain for all prospecting and retargeting ads.

• Result 1: Prospecting spend on excluded placements dropped 28 percent in month 1 and conversion rate improved 15 percent for the remaining inventory.
• Result 2: Ads using a branded short domain saw an 11 percent relative lift in CTR compared to the same creative with a long tracking URL.
• Result 3: After enforcing domain security and server-side click logging Acme reduced click-fraud noise and reconciled conversions within 3 percent of Google Ads reported data.

These results illustrate the combined effect: cleaner inventory plus trustable links equals better ROI.

Common pitfalls and how to avoid them

• Over-blocking: don't turn exclusions into a sledgehammer. Keep a staging list and measure impact before account-wide pushes.
• Breaking gclid: ensure your short link forwards the gclid parameter intact or you will lose Google Ads conversion attribution.
• Policy mismatches: test ad approvals in a small sample to confirm Google accepts your short domain as a landing domain.
• Open short link creation: restrict who can create links to avoid brand misuse and spam.

Advanced strategies

Per-channel branded domains

Use dedicated short domains per channel or region to isolate reputation and simplify reporting. For example use ytbrand for YouTube and goemail for email campaigns.

Dynamic destination rotation

Use your short link infrastructure to rotate landing pages for A B tests without editing ads. This preserves ad approvals and lets you experiment faster.

Integrate with CDP and server-side measurement

Feed short link click events into your CDP to unify ad clicks with CRM records. In 2026 this is a core capability to combat the loss of cross site signals.

Checklist before rollout

• Placement audit completed and exclusion thresholds defined.
• Account-level exclusion list created and staged.
• Branded short domain registered SSL enabled and DNS secured.
• Redirect server set to preserve query params and compatible with parallel tracking.
• Test campaigns running with short links and tracking validated.
• Automation plan ready for ongoing placement ingestion and quarantine rules.
• Domain governance and security controls in place.

Final thoughts and next steps

2026 favors marketers who centralize controls and own their click flows. Account-level placement exclusions give you a powerful guardrail for automated Google Ads formats. Branded short links give you the trust factor and tracking control you need in a privacy-first world.

Start small pilot broadly analyze quickly and automate the repeatable parts. The combined approach protects brand reputation improves CTR and measurably reduces wasted ad spend.

Call to action: Ready to stop wasting budget on bad placements and gain control of your ad clicks with branded short domains? Run the checklist above this week and schedule a technical audit to verify gclid preservation and ad policy compliance. If you want a template for automated exclusion scripts or a rollout plan for branded short domains we can provide step by step examples tailored to your account.

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