How to Set Google Ad Preferences
You have more control over the ads you see across Google Search, YouTube, and Discovery than you might think. Instead of being a passive recipient of whatever the algorithm decides to serve you, you can actively shape your advertising experience to be more relevant and less intrusive. This guide walks you through exactly how to use Google's "My Ad Center" to set your preferences, see what information Google uses, and take back control.
Why Bother with Your Google Ad Settings?
Taking a few minutes to adjust your ad preferences might seem minor, but it can significantly improve your daily online experience. Ever feel like you’re being followed around the internet by an ad for a product you glanced at once? Or maybe you’re getting ads for something completely irrelevant to your life, like parenting products when you don’t have children. Customizing your settings helps fix that.
The core benefits boil down to three things:
Increased Relevance: You can tell Google more about what you actually like, leading to ads for hobbies, products, and services you’re genuinely interested in. This turns ads from a nuisance into a potentially helpful discovery tool.
Improved Privacy: You can see what data and interests Google is using to target you and choose to limit or turn off personalization altogether. This gives you more say over how your information is used.
Better Experience: You can limit ads from specific brands you dislike or filter out content from sensitive categories like gambling or alcohol, creating a more comfortable browsing environment for you.
Welcome to Google's "My Ad Center"
Your main destination for managing all of this is "My Ad Center." Think of it as the central dashboard for everything related to the ads you see across Google’s properties. It’s a surprisingly transparent and user-friendly tool that puts the controls directly in your hands.
How to Access My Ad Center
Finding My Ad Center is simple, and you can get there in a few different ways. You'll need to be signed in to your Google Account.
Direct Link: The easiest way is to go directly to myadcenter.google.com. We recommend bookmarking this page for easy access later.
From a Google Ad: When you see an ad on a Google service like Search or YouTube, you can often click the three dots or an info icon next to it. You’ll see an option that leads you to My Ad Center.
From Your Google Account Settings:
Go to myaccount.google.com.
In the left-hand navigation menu, click "Data & privacy."
Scroll down to the "Things you've done and places you've been" section and find "My Ad Center."
Fine-Tuning Your Ad Experience: Topics and Brands
Once you're in My Ad Center, you’ll land on the "Customize ads" tab. This is where you can do the most detailed "weeding" of your ad profile to reflect your true interests. You'll see two main categories here: "Topics" and "Brands."
Adding or Removing Ad Topics
Google builds a profile of topics it thinks you're interested in based on your search history, the YouTube videos you watch, and other activity. Here in My Ad Center, you can see that list and correct it.
Let's say you spent one afternoon researching skateboards for a gift, and now Google thinks you’re a lifelong skater. Your "Topics" list will likely include "Skateboarding" and related interests.
To remove a topic, simply hover over it and click the minus (-) button and select "See fewer." This tells Google you're not interested, and it will reduce ads related to that category. Conversely, if you want to see more ads about a specific hobby, like "Guitar" or "Data Analysis," you can use the search bar at the top to find that topic and click the plus (+) button to add it to your preferences.
Limiting Ads from Specific Brands
The "Brands" tab works the same way. This is incredibly useful for when you've already made a purchase and no longer need to see ads for that item. For instance, if you just bought a new car from Ford, you can go into the "Brands" section, find "Ford," and click the minus (-) button to see fewer ads from them. This helps stop the seemingly endless retargeting that happens after a big purchase.
How to Limit Sensitive Ad Categories
Some ad categories are inherently more sensitive than others, and you may prefer not to see them at all. Google allows you to limit ads related to topics that many people find personal or uncomfortable.
In the "Customize ads" section, scroll down until you see "Sensitive categories." Here, you can click to see a list of topics, including:
Alcohol
Dating
Gambling
Pregnancy and parenting
Weight loss
Next to each category is a button that says "See fewer." Simply click this for any category you want to avoid. While Google states this won't eliminate 100% of these ads (for example, a general airline ad might show people drinking wine), it will significantly reduce them by preventing advertisers from specifically targeting you based on these interests.
Turning Off Ad Personalization Completely
If you want to take privacy a step further, Google gives you the option to turn off ad personalization entirely. This means Google will stop using your activity and information to show you tailored ads.
What's the Trade-Off?
At the very top of My Ad Center, you’ll find a prominent toggle for "Personalized ads." Clicking this allows you to turn them completely off. However, it's important to understand the trade-off here. It works like this:
Personalization ON: You see ads tailored to your inferred interests, age, gender, and recent activity. For example, if you watch a lot of tech review videos, you'll see ads for new gadgets.
Personalization OFF: You still see the same number of ads. They are just generic and based on broad, non-personal context, such as the content of the website you're visiting or the video you're watching. They will likely be far less relevant to you.
Choosing to turn it off is a matter of personal preference - whether you prioritize ad relevance or minimizing data usage for advertising.
Managing the Data That Fuels Your Ads
The real power of My Ad Center is seeing the data behind the curtain. Clicking on the "Manage privacy" tab gives you an under-the-hood look at the information fueling your personalized ads.
From here, you can review and manage a few key inputs:
YouTube History: See how the videos you've watched on YouTube influence the ads you get. You can pause or clear this history if you wish.
Web & App Activity: This shows other Google activity that's used for personalization. Like the YouTube history, you can manage this from your main Google Account settings.
Info you've added to Google: This is a big one. It reflects the demographic profile (age range, gender, language) that Google has created for you. You can review this and update or remove the information. If Google has your age bracket wrong, correcting it here can have an immediate impact on the ads you see.
Taking a moment to review this section ensures the data used to personalize your ads is accurate, which in turn leads to a better ad experience if you choose to keep personalization enabled.
Final Thoughts
Setting your Google Ad preferences is a simple yet powerful way to shape your online world. By using My Ad Center, you can move from feeling like an advertiser's target to being an active participant in the kind of content you engage with, enhancing both the relevance of ads and your sense of privacy.
While taking control of your personal ad experience is a great first step, marketers and business owners face the opposite challenge: understanding the performance of their own ads. It’s tough to know what’s truly working when your data is scattered across Google Ads, Google Analytics, your CRM, and your e-commerce platform. That's precisely why we built Graphed. We connect all your marketing and sales data in one place, letting you ask simple, plain-English questions to instantly create dashboards and reports. Instead of spending hours wrangling spreadsheets, you can get real-time answers and find out which campaigns are actually driving growth.