You can exclude specific events or user-scoped custom dimensions from being used to personalize ads, and thus reserve that data for measurement purposes only.
How audiences are affected
If you exclude events or user-scoped custom dimensions from ads personalization, then any audience that is based on that data is not eligible for export from Analytics to any of Google's advertising products (e.g., Google Ads, Display & Video 360, Search Ads 360). This also applies to any audience whose component audiences are based on that excluded data.
Audiences that include such events and custom dimensions are still available within Analytics for use in reports, explorations, and audience building, and can be exported to non-advertising products like BigQuery.
How individual events and user-scoped custom dimensions are affected
The individual events and custom dimensions excluded from ads personalization are available for export to advertising products, though they cannot be used by those products to personalize ads.
Exclude events from ads personalization
To exclude events from being used to personalize ads:
- In Admin, under Data display, click Events.
Note: The previous link opens to the last Analytics property you accessed. You can change the property using the property selector. You must be an Editor or above at the property level to exclude or include events from ads personalization.
- In the row for an event, click
.
- Click Mark as NPA (Non-Personalized Ads).
To reinclude an event in ads personalization, click Unmark as NPA.
Exclude user-scoped custom dimensions from ads personalization
To exclude user-scoped custom dimensions from being used to personalize ads:
- In Admin, under Data display, click Custom definitions.
Note: The previous link opens to the last Analytics property you accessed. You can change the property using the property selector. You must be an Editor or above at the property level to exclude or include user-scoped custom dimensions from ads personalization.
- In the row for a user-scoped custom dimension, click
- Note: To identify a user-scoped custom dimension, look for 'User' under the Scope column in the table.
- Click Mark as NPA.
To reinclude a custom dimension in ads personalization, click Unmark as NPA.
Marking an event or custom dimension as NPA does not affect the data that has already been exported to Google Ads or Display & Video 360 (DV360). You must login to Google Ads or DV360 to manage the ads-personalization uses of any exported event or user-property data.
Metrics derived from NPA events (e.g., LTV) are not automatically treated as NPA. Therefore, you must login to Google Ads or DV360 to manage the ads-personalization uses of derived metrics.