Exclude Locations in Google Ads

Excluding a location prevents your ads from showing to users who are in, or searching for, that location. This is useful when certain areas consistently produce low-quality clicks, high bounce rates, or no conversions — allowing you to redirect budget toward locations that actually perform. Exclusions apply on top of your existing targeting settings.

You can exclude locations at multiple levels of granularity: countries, regions or states, cities, postal codes, and custom radius areas. The more specific the exclusion, the more precise your targeting becomes. You can layer multiple exclusions within a single campaign.

Targeting tells Google where you want your ads to show — your ads will only be eligible in those locations. Excluding carves out areas inside or overlapping your target region where you do not want ads to appear. For example, you might target an entire country but exclude specific cities where you don't operate or have poor results.

Location exclusions in Google Ads are set at the campaign level, not the ad group level. If you need different location settings for different ad groups, you would need to split them into separate campaigns. This is a known limitation of the Google Ads interface.

Location exclusions do not directly affect Quality Score. However, by removing low-performing locations you may indirectly improve your overall campaign metrics — such as CTR and conversion rate — which can positively influence Quality Score over time. Focus on excluding locations with consistently poor performance data rather than making changes speculatively.

Go to Campaign Settings → Locations and look for the Excluded locations list. Click the X or trash icon next to the exclusion you want to remove, then save your changes. The exclusion takes effect immediately, so ads will be eligible to show in that location again as soon as the setting is saved.