How to Use Google Ads Placement Reports

Google Ads placement reports help you identify where your ads appear and how each placement contributes to conversions so you can optimize spend and targeting. In this how-to guide you’ll learn to generate, interpret, and act on placement data, use filters to surface low-performing sites, and apply exclusions or bid adjustments to improve ROI. For setup details consult Find or create placement reports for your Performance Max campaigns and follow steps to align placements with your goals.

Key Takeaways:

• Use the Placements report to identify which websites, apps, and videos actually served your display and video ads.
• Segment and filter by campaign, ad format, device, and network to pinpoint high-value and low-value placements.
• Compare metrics (CTR, conversion rate, cost per conversion) per placement to decide whether to exclude, lower bids, or increase investment.
• Create placement exclusion lists and apply bid adjustments to reduce wasted spend on irrelevant or low-performing placements.
• Export and schedule reports regularly to track trends, share findings, and inform ongoing optimization.

Understanding Google Ads Placement Reports

Placement reports show the exact domains, apps, YouTube channels, and ad inventory slots where your display and video creatives ran, letting you compare performance by placement at a granular level. You’ll see counts (impressions, clicks), rates (CTR, viewable rate), and outcomes (conversions, cost), so you can spot that a shopping campaign delivered 8,400 impressions on AppX with 3.5% CTR and $0.18 CPC versus 1,200 impressions on BlogY at 0.2% CTR and $0.50 CPC.

What are Placement Reports?

Placement reports are Google Ads exports that map ad delivery to specific publisher locations – domain, app, or video ID – and distinguish between managed (where you targeted) and automatic placements. You can filter by placement type, device, or campaign; for example, find that 12% of impressions came from mobile apps and that 70% of conversions occurred on YouTube channels within a single video campaign.

Key Metrics to Analyze

Focus on impressions, clicks, CTR, conversions, conversion rate, cost, CPC, CPA, and ROAS, plus viewability metrics like viewable impressions and view-through conversions. Metrics tell different stories: a 0.3% CTR with high impressions often signals poor relevance, while a 2-4% CTR with low conversions points to landing-page friction; use CPA and ROAS thresholds to judge profitability.

Interpret metrics together: if a placement has high CTR (≥2%) but CPA exceeds your target (for example, target CPA $20 and actual CPA $45), investigate post-click experience or exclude the placement. Conversely, low viewable rate (<50%) suggests impressions are not seen and may inflate CPM spend. Segment by device, campaign, and ad format, and set rules to pause placements with CPA > $50 or conversion rate < 0.5% to protect budget while you test alternatives.

How to Access Placement Reports

Open your Google Ads account, go to Reports > Predefined reports (Dimensions) > Placements or open a Display/Video campaign and click the Placements tab to see the exact sites, apps, and YouTube channels that served your ads, with metrics like impressions, clicks, cost, and conversions sortable to surface the top 10-20 placements.

Navigating the Google Ads Interface

From the left-hand menu select Campaigns, pick a Display or Video campaign, then the Placements tab; use the date range picker (last 7, 30, 90 days), Segment by Device or Network, and add columns such as Conversions, Cost/conv, and Viewable impressions – for example, mobile might show 65% of impressions but only 30% of conversions.

Customizing Your Reports

Apply filters (e.g., placements with >1,000 impressions or cost >$50), add custom columns like View‑through conversions and Avg CPV, save the view as a custom report, and schedule weekly exports so you can monitor top-performing and underperforming placements automatically.

Use Segments to break down by placement type (website, app, YouTube channel) and device, group rows to aggregate by domain, and export CSV/PDF for offline analysis; if a placement shows 2,300 impressions, $180 spend and 12 conversions (cost/conv $15), decide whether to raise bids, lower bids, or exclude that placement based on your target CPA.

Essential Tips for Analyzing Placement Reports

When analyzing placement data, focus on CTR, conversion rate, cost-per-acquisition (CPA), viewability and conversion value per placement; segment by device and date range (14-30 days) to reveal performance shifts, and compare placements by impressions-e.g., 50,000 impressions with 0.3% CTR and 3% conversion rate usually beats 100,000 impressions with 0.02% CTR and zero conversions. This helps you prioritize placements to scale or exclude.

• Sort by conversions and CPA to find ROI drivers
• Segment by device, placement type, and date range for trends
• Check viewability, video completion, and landing-page metrics

Identifying High-Performing Placements

You can flag winners by filtering placements where CPA is below your campaign average, conversion rate exceeds 2% and CTR is above 0.2%; verify viewability (>50%) and video completion (>70%) and set ROAS thresholds (for example, >3x). In one case a travel advertiser increased spend on placements with >70% viewability and saw ROAS jump from 1.8x to 4x within a month.

Recognizing Underperforming Placements

Watch for placements with high impressions but near-zero conversions, CTR under 0.05%, or CPA two times your campaign average; also cross-check high bounce rates or low session duration in Analytics-if a placement has 0 conversions over 30 days despite heavy impressions, you should mark it for exclusion or bid reduction, as a retail client cut CPA by 30% after removing five such placements with 0.01% CTR.

Export the placement report for 14-30 days and sort by conversions and CPA to isolate low-return sites, then filter for CTR <0.05% and zero conversions and validate with bounce rate and session duration; apply negative placements for the worst offenders, lower bids on marginal ones, and run A/B tests for two-week windows-for example, an e-commerce advertiser excluded five placements that produced 0 conversions and 0.01% CTR, reducing wasted spend by 18% and lowering CPA by 30%.

Factors Influencing Ad Placements

Multiple variables determine where your display and video ads appear: auction dynamics, targeting signals, publisher inventory, and creative suitability interact in real time. Google evaluates bid strategy, relevance signals, expected engagement, and landing-page experience when assessing eligibility. For example, viewability standards (50% of pixels for 1 second on display, 2 seconds on video) affect which impressions are counted and prioritized.

• Bid and bidding strategy – higher CPM or target-CPA bids increase chance of winning premium placements.
• Targeting layers – contextual keywords, demographics, and audience signals narrow inventory to more relevant sites and apps.
• Publisher settings and brand-safety controls – sensitive content categories are filtered by your exclusions and content labels.
• After you audit placement performance, exclude underperforming sites, apply bid adjustments, or target specific high-value placements to improve ROI.

Audience Targeting

When you layer demographics, in-market segments, and custom intent audiences, Google matches your ads to users showing strong purchase signals such as recent searches and site visits. For instance, targeting in-market buyers for “home insurance” often places your ads on comparison pages and insurance-review videos. Test combinations and use audience bid modifiers to balance reach and cost per conversion.

Creative Quality

Your creative’s format, size, and message directly influence placement frequency and performance: responsive display ads adapt across 15+ sizes, while fixed-size units like 300×250 or 728×90 may limit reach. Short videos under 15 seconds typically yield higher mobile completion rates, and a clear CTA improves click-through. Monitor asset-level metrics to see which creatives win more auctions.

Run structured A/B tests on headlines, images, and CTAs so Google can surface higher-engagement assets; swap low-performing images quickly. Keep file sizes within common publisher limits (roughly 150-200 KB for many display units), include staple sizes (300×250, 728×90, a tall mobile format), and provide multiple headlines and descriptions for responsive ads. Track viewable CPM, CTR, and completion rate by creative to decide which versions to scale.

Adjusting Your Campaign Strategy

You should translate placement report insights into concrete changes: raise bids by 15-30% on placements with CTR or conversion rate at least 2x the campaign average, pause or exclude placements with CTR under 0.2% and CPA 30% above your target, and reallocate budget toward top-performing site categories. Run segment-level tests for 2-4 weeks and track pre/post CPA and ROAS across at least 50 conversions to validate impact.

Optimizing Based on Insights

You should start by ranking placements by conversion rate, CTR, and CPA; treat any placement with conversion rate ≥2x your campaign average as a candidate for a +10-25% bid increase. If a placement’s CPA exceeds your target by 30% or more, lower bids or exclude it. In one B2B test, increasing bids 20% on three high-converting sites raised ROAS from 2.1 to 3.4 within three weeks while keeping CPA steady.

Testing New Placements

When you explore new placements, allocate a test budget of 10-20% and run A/B or draft campaigns for 14-28 days, aiming for 30-50 conversions before deciding. Keep creatives, bid strategy, and time windows identical across tests so differences reflect placement performance rather than creative variance.

You should set up separate ad groups for each placement or placement cluster, apply placement bid adjustments of ±15%, and monitor conversion rate, CPA, and view-through conversions. If mobile app placements drive high impressions but low CTR, test interstitial-friendly creatives or switch to CPM for the test. After results, remove placements with CPA > your target by 25% and scale those meeting CPA goals while keeping a 10% budget buffer for ongoing monitoring.

Best Practices for Continuous Improvement

Treat placement reporting as a feedback engine for ongoing optimization: set a cadence of weekly spot checks and quarterly audits, prioritize the top 10-20 placements that drive roughly 80% of conversions, and apply thresholds (pause placements with CTR under 0.2% or CPA 25% above target). Automate rules to pause poor performers and raise bids 15-30% on high-converting sites, log every change, and measure impact over at least two billing cycles (≈60 days) before making broad strategy shifts.

Regular Monitoring

Set daily alerts for major swings and run a weekly placement review focusing on CTR, conversion rate, cost-per-conversion, and viewability; inspect any placement with >1,000 impressions or that falls in your top 20 by spend. You should flag placements with week-over-week CTR changes >30% and use device, geography, and ad-size segments to decide targeted exclusions or bid adjustments, keeping a running list of placements to re-test after changes.

Using A/B Testing

Run A/B tests that change only one variable-creative, placement targeting, or bid strategy-so results are interpretable; aim for roughly 95% confidence or a minimum of 2,000 impressions per variant and at least 50 conversions. For example, testing two creatives on the same placement mix helped one advertiser lift CTR from 0.8% to 1.1% (a 37% increase) while lowering CPA by 18%, showing how narrow tests drive clear scaling decisions.

Begin each test with a concise hypothesis (e.g., “adding price in creative will increase CVR”), split traffic evenly, and use power calculators to set sample sizes; run tests at least two weeks to smooth daily variance. Analyze results by placement to spot interaction effects-one creative may win overall but lose on mobile apps-then scale winners, apply bid increases of 10-25% on winning placements, and schedule follow-up tests to iterate.

Final Words

Now you should use placement reports to audit where your ads appear, analyze performance by site and device, exclude low-performing placements, adjust bids toward high-converting environments, and set frequency and schedule limits to protect ROI. Regularly monitor trends, run experiments on promising placements, and document changes so you can scale what works and prune what doesn’t.

FAQ

Q: How do I access and run a Placement Report in Google Ads?

A: Open the Google Ads interface, go to the campaign or ad group that runs Display or Video, then select the “Placements” tab (under “Content” in some accounts). For a broader view use Reports > Predefined reports (Dimensions) > Where ads showed. Set the date range, apply filters for campaign, ad group or placement type, and add segments such as Device, Click Type, or Conversion Action to break results down. Click the columns icon to include metrics you need (impressions, clicks, cost, conversions, view-through conversions, viewability metrics for video) and export or schedule the report as a CSV or Google Sheets file for downstream analysis.

Q: Which metrics and columns should I prioritize when reviewing placement performance?

A: Focus on impressions and viewable impressions to assess reach; clicks and CTR to gauge engagement; conversions, conversion rate and cost-per-conversion for direct performance; cost and average CPC to control spend; view-through conversions and view rate for video campaigns; and viewability (vCPM, percent viewable) for brand buy-side quality. Also include bounce rate and pages/session if you link Analytics, plus placement URL and domain to identify problematic publishers. Use value-based metrics (conversion value, ROAS) when optimizing for revenue rather than volume.

Q: How can I use Placement Reports to exclude poor-performing placements or add high-performers?

A: Identify placements with high cost and low conversion or very low CTR relative to campaign benchmarks. For exclusions: select poor placements in the report and use the “Exclude” action to add them to the ad group or campaign negative placement list, or add them to a shared negative placement list to apply across campaigns. For additions: move consistent top-performing placements into managed placements (targeted placements) or add them to a placement bid adjustment to increase bids for proven inventory. Use domain-level exclusions for many low-quality subpages and monitor after changes to avoid cutting off converting long-tail inventory.

Q: What analysis techniques help distinguish performance across devices, placement types and YouTube inventory?

A: Segment the report by Device to find mobile vs desktop differences; by Placement Type or Network to separate app inventory, mobile web, and YouTube. Group placements by domain to spot publishers that host many individual placements. For YouTube, include video-specific metrics (views, view rate, watch time, quartile completion, view-through conversions) and analyze by content topics and channel. Filter out in-app placements if app inventory shows high click volume but poor conversion. Use custom labels or filters to track brand-safe vs open-web sites and cross-reference with viewability and engagement rates.

Q: How can I automate optimizations and integrate Placement Report data with other tools?

A: Schedule Google Ads report exports or use the API/Google Ads scripts to pull placement data regularly. Create automated rules in Google Ads that pause placements meeting conditions (for example: cost > X AND conversions = 0 in last 7 days) or lower bids for placements with CTR below a threshold. Push report data into Google Sheets, BigQuery or Data Studio for centralized dashboards and historical trend analysis. Combine placement reports with conversion attribution data to avoid excluding placements with delayed value, and use shared negative lists and automated scripts to keep optimizations consistent across campaigns.