Targeting in protections

When setting up most protections, you can add targeting. This article describes a few things to keep in mind when adding targeting to protections.

Set up targeting

The default is to apply protections to all inventory. To target specific inventory:

1. Sign in to Google Ad Manager.
2. Click Protections  Protections
3. Click New protection and choose a type of protection (e.g., click Ad content, Competition, or Inventory Exclusion).
4. Select Only protect specific inventory.
5. Click Add targeting.
6. Select an item from the dropdown.
7. Click in the box of the item you just selected (e.g., click All inventory).
8. Click  to edit next to items.
9. Click   to apply an item to the protection.
10. Click  to remove an item from the protection.

Support for placement targeting

• Ad content protections with label blocks do not support placement targeting.
• Competitive exclusions do not support placement targeting.

Ad units

If you don’t target any ad units, the protection applies to the run of network.

The protection also applies to child ad units. If you target an ad unit that contains special child ad units, those ad units are also included in the protection despite not being explicitly targeted.

Multi-size requests

When an "Ad content" or "Inventory exclusion" protection includes "Inventory size" targeting and a multi-size request is made, the blocks are applied differently.

Ad content blocks

Ad content blocks are created after you click New protection Ad content on the Protections page.

All sizes in the multi-size request will be blocked from returning to that request, not just the size specified in the block.

Inventory exclusion blocks

Inventory exclusion blocks are created when you click New protection Inventory exclusion on the Protections page.

Only the size specified in the block will be prevented from serving.