YouTube campaigns

Category exclusion targeting for YouTube & partners line items

Next: YouTube videos in YouTube & partners line items

Our YouTube Ad Safety Promise is that certain types of content can’t be monetized for ads on YouTube and Google video partners: we’ll automatically apply exclusions to prevent your ads from showing on the most controversial content, such as terrorist acts, nudity, and recent sensitive events. Regardless of the category exclusions you select, your ads will be excluded from showing on content that isn’t appropriate for any advertiser.

The category exclusion settings described below - content categories, digital content labels, and other content types - are meant to give you additional control and help you exclude types of content that, while in compliance with our policies, may not fit your brand or business. While content exclusions are done to the best of our ability, we can’t guarantee that all related content will be excluded.

Category exclusion settings

You can use the following category exclusions for your YouTube & partners line items, both at the advertiser level or the line-item level.

Content categories

Content categories provide an extra layer of control over the inventory your YouTube ads show on by letting you opt out of categories of sensitive content that don’t align with your brand or the message of your campaign. No matter which option you select, we’ll automatically apply additional exclusions to prevent your ads from showing on the most controversial content.

You can select from the following three categories. You can also view more details below about what content types are included and excluded in each category.

Expanded categories: This option lets you show ads across all inventory on YouTube and video partners that meet our standards for monetization. This option may be an appropriate choice for brands that want maximum access to the full breadth of videos eligible for ads, including, for example, videos that have strong profanity in the context of comedy or a documentary, or excessive violence as featured in video games.
Standard categories (line item default): All line items use this category by default. This option lets you show ads across a wide range of content that’s appropriate for most brands, such as popular music videos, documentaries, and movie trailers. The content you can show ads on is based on YouTube’s advertiser-friendly content guidelines that take into account, for example, the strength or frequency of profanity, or the appropriateness of subject matter like sensitive events. Ads won’t show, for example, on content with repeated strong profanity, strong sexual content, or graphic violence.
Limited categories: This option lets you show ads on a reduced range of content that’s appropriate for brands with particularly strict guidelines around inappropriate language and sexual suggestiveness - above and beyond what YouTube’s advertiser-friendly content guidelines address. The videos accessible in this sensitive category meet heightened requirements, especially for inappropriate language and sexual suggestiveness. For example, your ads will be excluded from showing on some of YouTube’s most popular music videos and other pop culture content across YouTube and Google video partners.

Content category details

YouTube Ad Safety Promise

Your ads will automatically be excluded from showing on the following types of content, no matter what content category setting you choose.

Content	Expanded categories	Standard categories	Limited categories
Profanity in the title or thumbnail image, or profanity used repeatedly or throughout	Excluded	Excluded	Excluded
Full nudity, exposed nipples, animal mating, sexual abuse, or sexual content in the thumbnail	Excluded	Excluded	Excluded
Content showing abusing, buying, making, selling, or finding drugs	Excluded	Excluded	Excluded
Content discussing terrorism or sensitive current events like war, death, or tragedy	Excluded	Excluded	Excluded

Profanity

Content	Expanded categories	Standard categories	Limited categories
Light profanity used in a non-hateful, comedic or artistic way	Included	Included	Included
Moderate profanity used in a non-hateful, comedic, or artistic manner, or a music video with frequent profanity	Included	Included	Excluded
Strong profanity used throughout or at the very beginning of the video in comedy, documentary, news, or education	Included	Excluded	Excluded

Sexualized content

Content	Expanded categories	Standard categories	Limited categories
Romance, kissing, limited clothing in non-sexual settings, or general discussions of relationships or sexuality	Included	Included	Included
Limited clothing in sexual settings, sensual dancing, moderate sexually suggestive behavior, or a music video containing sexual content	Included	Included	Excluded
Blurred nudity, focus on sexual body parts, focus on sex as a topic, discussions about sex acts, implied or display of sex acts or sex toys without visible contact or nudity	Included	Excluded	Excluded

Violence

Content	Expanded categories	Standard categories	Limited categories
Mild violence or injury without showing blood or graphic content	Included	Included	Included
Violence or graphic content in video games, comedy, or music videos	Included	Included	Included
Focus on blood, gore, and excessive violence in video games, animal violence, or animation; sports, accidents, pranks, or “fails” with serious injury; blood shown in body modification or medical procedures	Included	Excluded	Excluded

Drugs

Content	Expanded categories	Standard categories	Limited categories
Content with humorous references, education, music, or statements without glorifying or promoting drugs	Included	Included	Included
Drug consumption, fabrication, and distribution in the context of music, comedy, news, education, or documentary	Included	Excluded	Excluded

Hurtful language

Content	Expanded categories	Standard categories	Limited categories
News, documentary, or education content with words that could be considered biased, demeaning, or hate speech against a race, religion, gender, or other group	Included	Excluded	Excluded

Digital content labels

Digital content labels range from "DL-G", which corresponds to content that's suitable for general audiences and is considered the most brand safe level, to "DL-MA", which corresponds to content suitable only for mature audiences. Learn more about digital content labels in Display & Video 360.

Targeting digital content labels may restrict your ability to serve if the content is not suitable for the audience. For example, DL-G inventory is not available for alcohol ads, so targeting DL-G only would prevent those ads from serving.

Advertiser v. line-item level category exclusions

Advertiser-level category exclusions let you set exclusions that apply to YouTube & partners line items across your entire Display & Video 360 advertiser. This means that at the advertiser level, you can select content categories, digital content labels, and other content types, and they’ll automatically apply to all of your YouTube & partners line items.

With content categories:

Your Display & Video 360 advertiser is set to Expanded by default. This allows you to select all content category options at the line item level.
Your YouTube & partners line items are set to Standard by default.

Even after selecting a content category at the advertiser level, you can select a more restrictive category for each individual line item. You can’t, however, select less restrictive categories.

Examples:

If your advertiser-level category is Limited, you’ll have to use Limited for all of your individual YouTube & partners line items.
If your advertiser-level category is Standard, you can use Standard or Limited for individual YouTube & partners line items.
If your advertiser-level category is Expanded, you can choose Expanded, Standard, or Limited for individual YouTube & partners line items.

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