What’s new?

In an effort to bolster consumer trust and foster a perception of transparency, Google has introduced a new 3 ‘strikes’ system. The system follows a process of incrementally increasing penalties for repeat offenders, and focuses on preventing ‘unapproved’ substances, or dangerous products or services. This process factors how many repeated ‘violations’ take place within a 90 day window, first handing out a 3 day suspension, followed by a further 7 days. Finally should a 3rd violation be flagged within 90 days of the 2nd then the account will be permanently disabled.

Whilst any actions platforms like Google can take to foster a more open and transparent and safe  environment should in theory be applauded, as always the ‘real world’ implications of these changes are a little more nuanced than they appear at first glance.

Unfortunately, our experience tells us that these changes have the very real potential to negatively impact honest, by-the-book customers. Google is notoriously poor at mis-identifying policy violations, for example Christmas tree ads flagged as nudity or Software products suspended for drug violations.

Whilst previously, the often-opaque ‘review process’ was frustrating - 99% of the time it didn’t result in a full ban of the account. One of the major challenges we have seen over the years is an apparent lack of consistency in the application of policies, even for registered pharmacies with pre-approved permission for health-care related advertising. 

Our thoughts

The reality of these changes is that for advertisers who have fallen foul of policy violations in the past, and know just how easy it is to see repeated violations occur will lose some confidence in the Google ads platform. Some may even look to diversify their risk by moving budgets into other platforms.

The truth is, there isn’t a completely guaranteed way to avoid Google ads account suspensions - With experience you can begin to get a feel for which actions might trigger account reviews, and what the most common causes of a suspension are but even then the ever changing landscape of Google’s policies can shift and leave you exposed.

Our hope is that Google is taking this policy shift as an opportunity to overhaul their review processes, but history tells us that progress within the platform is often painful.