Skip to main content

Exclude Demographic

How to remove underperforming demographic segments from your campaigns

Shaquira Jeyasingh avatar
Written by Shaquira Jeyasingh
Updated over 2 weeks ago

What is this?

“Exclude Demographic” is an Opteo Improvement that helps reduce wasted ad spend by excluding poorly performing demographics - such as age, gender, or income bracket - from your ad groups and campaigns.

Why exclude demographics?

Demographic performance varies significantly across different audience segments. Some age ranges or genders might generate clicks but rarely convert, creating expensive inefficiencies that drain your budget without delivering results.

While Google Ads allows demographic targeting adjustments, identifying which segments to exclude requires deep data analysis that's time-consuming to do manually. That's where this improvement becomes valuable.

Opteo analyses demographic performance across your Search and Display campaigns, comparing conversion rates and costs between different segments. When we identify demographics that consistently waste spend, we recommend excluding them entirely.

This is particularly powerful for smart bidding campaigns where you can't adjust demographic bids. Even with automated strategies like Target CPA or Maximise Conversions, you can still exclude poor-performing demographics - making exclusion one of the most effective ways to optimise traffic under smart bidding.

How does this Improvement work?

We monitor demographic performance across age, gender, income, and parental status segments, analysing cost per acquisition (CPA) and return on ad spend (ROAS) for each group.

Here's how we identify demographics worth excluding:

  • Demographic CPA is 3x higher than your campaign or ad group average

  • Demographic ROAS is one-third or less than your campaign or ad group average

  • The segment has sufficient traffic data to make statistically reliable decisions

  • Recent performance shows consistent underperformance across multiple time periods

We examine data across different lookback windows - from 14 days up to one year - ensuring recommendations are based on persistent problems rather than temporary fluctuations. For accounts with lower traffic volumes, we aggregate similar campaigns to improve statistical confidence.

When we identify consistently underperforming demographics, we show you the performance comparison and let you exclude them with a single click.

Technical notes

Why this recommendation appeared:

  • Demographic segment CPA is 3x higher than campaign/ad group average, or ROAS is one-third or less than average

  • Smart bidding campaign where demographic bid adjustments don't work effectively

  • Sufficient statistical data exists across multiple time periods (14 days up to 1 year)

  • Segment cost doesn't exceed 35% of total campaign/ad group cost (to maintain traffic volume)

  • Search or Display campaign where demographic targeting is available

Why you might not see this recommendation:

  • All demographic segments perform within acceptable tolerance ranges

  • Insufficient traffic volume for any individual demographic segment

  • Recent demographic exclusions or bid changes within the analysis window

  • Campaign uses manual bidding where demographic bid adjustments might be more effective

  • Campaign isn't Search or Display type (demographic data not available)

  • Smart bidding strategy is in learning mode or misconfigured

How the analysis works:

  • Analyses age, gender, income, and parental status performance across ad groups

  • Compares segment CPA/ROAS against ad group and campaign group averages

  • Uses dynamic look back windows (14 days to 1 year) based on data availability

  • Aggregates similar campaigns for low-volume accounts to improve statistical reliability

  • Only recommends excluding the single worst-performing segment per demographic type

  • Applies exclusions at ad group level for precise targeting control

Did this answer your question?