Quick List of State Exclusions For Google Ads

State Exclusions for Google Ads in the Geo Feature:

Why is Important to Exclude Certain States:

Due to the targeting options for location in Google Ads, location exclusions may be of interest. Just like excluding other countries is important, sometimes excluding other states are important as well. Google defaults ad campaigns as “Presence or Interest” when selecting locations, which means a person can see search ads intended for Pennsylvania residents if they’re currently in PA or if they’re searching about PA while physically in Alaska.

For some strategies this may be helpful, and for others it may not be. Additionally, there could be gray area here and a PA focused campaign may still want to allow Ohio, New York and other surrounding states to see the ad, but NOT want that individual from Alaska to see it. The dynamic of the web, servers and platform locations being in different states causes an interesting dynamic for advertising campaigns and a good way to fight against possible spam is to leave as few possible “holes” in your targeting as possible. Excluding states, among other safety strategies, is a great way to reduce spam or fraudulent clicks.

Why Should I Exclude States in Location Targeting?

Over the years, Google Ads has removed certain targeting parameters and has changed the way that they allow you to target and report on locations. Due to this, it’s become more difficult to target only specific locations and Google instead looks at a location in a variety of ways, aside from just the physical location of that person.

You have to be even more diligent on this with Google Ads Performance Max campaigns as targeting and reporting is even less available here.

Want to know if you’re losing money to misplaced location serving?

Simply check your Google Ads location report, then check your GA4 traffic report filtered to “Paid Search” and enable a secondary filter for “Geography – Region” to get an idea! Google Analytics reports “States” as “Regions”. You can also break these down into cities as well!

Here is a Google Ads location report compared to a Google Analytics report (I created this comparison in Looker Studio for a better side-by-side visual):

Here is a list of all states US for a quick exclusion list:

Simply remove the state or states you want to continue including, and use the rest as exclusion locations. One important detail is that you should use or copy/paste below (or download it here) to include, “Georgia, USA” otherwise Google Ads defaults that to the country of Georgia rather than the state.