Personalised advertising

Personalised advertising is a powerful tool that improves advertising relevance for users and increases ROI for advertisers. Because it works by employing online user data to target users with more relevant advertising content, it can provide a better experience for users and advertisers alike.

When employing user behaviour or interest data to provide more relevant ad content, it’s important to handle that information appropriately. We recognise that certain interests are sensitive and that targeting based on them could negatively impact user experience.

With this in mind and based on the sensitivities associated with user ad targeting, we’ve identified policy standards for all personalised advertising targeting features. For the purposes of this article, targeting means both positive and negative targeting. These standards do not replace our other advertising policies (for example, for Google Ads or Shopping) and advertisers are still responsible for complying with all applicable advertising policies, in addition to personalised advertising policies. Advertisers are also required to comply with our policies for European Union user consent, where applicable.

Google's Privacy Policy applies to all Google features and dictates how Google collects, uses and protects user data. Learn about what happens if you violate our policies.

In this article

• Personalised advertising content policy principles
• Restrictions based on personalised advertising targeting feature
• Sensitive interest categories
  • Legal restrictions: restricted drug terms, clinical trial recruitment, alcohol, gambling, location-based gambling
  • Personal hardships: health, negative financial status, relationship hardships, commission of a crime, abuse and trauma, imposing negativity
  • Identity and belief: sexual orientation, political affiliation, political content, trade union membership, race and ethnicity, religious belief, marginalised groups, transgender identification
  • Sexual interests: birth control, sexual content
• Limited personalisation
  • Access to opportunities (US/CA): housing, employment, consumer finance
  • Options to fix: Access to opportunities
• Personalised advertising data collection and use policies
• Options to fix ad violations

Personalised advertising content policy principles

Sensitive interest categories are restricted in personalised ads. We define sensitive interest categories in terms of the following content policy principles:

• Legal restrictions: Ads must comply with the law.
• Personal hardships: Ads shouldn’t target users in ways that exploit their difficulties or struggles.
• Identity and belief: Ads shouldn’t target users based on categories prone to systemic discrimination or unfair stigmas.
• Sexual interests: Ads shouldn’t target users based on inherently private sexual interests or experiences.
• Access to opportunities: Ads shouldn’t limit access to opportunities by leveraging unfair societal biases when targeting users with specific content categories.

Restrictions based on personalised advertising targeting feature

For purposes of this policy, personalised ads policies may apply differently depending on the targeting feature used. For all targeting features, there are two components:

• Targeting users, which refers to the groups of users that you've chosen to see your ads or exclude from seeing your ads. Targeting, both positive and negative, includes all aspects of creating or selecting those groups.
• Promoting products and services, which refers to the specific content in your ad or on your landing page.

The type of personalisation available depends, in part, on whether the products and services that you are promoting are sensitive. 

• For all personalised ads targeting features, we don’t allow targeting users based on sensitive interest categories.
• For advertiser-curated audiences, where advertisers can customise, curate or upload their own audiences, advertisers are also not allowed to promote products and services from sensitive interest categories.
• For pre-defined Google audiences, where Google manages the development and curation of policy-compliant audiences based on information across Google properties, advertisers are allowed to promote products and services from sensitive interest categories.

Effect of the policy: Audiences for personalised ads

Advertisers promoting products and services that fall within sensitive interest categories are unable to use advertiser-curated audiences. This helps ensure that sensitive interest categories aren’t inadvertently used for targeting audiences. Because pre-defined Google audiences are expressly configured without sensitive user signals, all advertisers are allowed to use them, even if they promote sensitive interest categories.

See the following non-exhaustive list of targeting features and how personalised ads policies apply.

Advertiser-curated audiences If you’re an advertiser that promotes products and services in sensitive interest categories, you cannot use the following targeting features.	Pre-defined Google audiences Advertisers are able to use the following targeting features, including advertisers that promote products and services in sensitive interest categories.
Customer Match  Your data segments  Audience expansion  Lookalike segments  Custom segments  Custom affinity	In-market segment  Affinity  Demographics (with exceptions)1  Detailed demographics (with exceptions)1  Life events  Location targeting2

_{1: Certain demographics (age, gender, marital status, parental status) may not be used to target housing, employment and consumer finance ads in the United States and Canada.
2: ZIP code location targeting can not be used for housing, employment and consumer finance ads in the United States and Canada.
3: Users under the age of 18 are not eligible for personalised advertising of any kind, including serving based on pre-defined Google audiences. Advertisers using advertiser-curated audiences are prohibited from uploading customer information from viewers of child-directed content.}

Sensitive interest categories

Legal restrictions

  Ads must comply with all applicable laws and regulations for all of the locations where your ads are showing.

We don’t allow targeting users based on legally restricted content, as defined in the following sensitive interest categories. Depending on the targeting feature used, you also may not be allowed to promote products and services in the following sensitive interest categories.

You are responsible for ensuring that your ads comply with policy where required. See below for specific examples of what we don't allow.

Personal hardships

We understand that users don’t want to see ads that exploit their personal struggles, difficulties and hardships, so we don’t allow personalised advertising based on these hardships. Such personal hardships include health conditions, treatments, procedures, personal failings, struggles or traumatic personal experiences. You also can’t impose negativity on the user.

We don’t allow targeting users based on personal hardships, as defined in the following sensitive interest categories. Depending on the targeting feature used, you also may not be allowed to promote products and services in the following sensitive interest categories.

You are responsible for ensuring that your ads comply with policy where required. See below for specific examples of what we don't allow.

Learn more about how to Fix ads with policy violations.

Identity and belief

We consider identity and belief systems to be deeply personal and complex. They’re highly dependent on diversity of cultural norms, geography, history and personal life experiences. We also understand that how one identifies or what one believes can be used to segment users based on judgements or stigmas.

We want ads to provide a positive experience and to be informed by users’ interests rather than by who they’re perceived to be as a person, so we don’t allow personalised advertising based on a user’s fundamental or intrinsic self-identity or their belief systems. Such identities and beliefs can include inherently private classifications of one’s self, classifications susceptible to stigmas, discrimination or harassment, membership within groups that are susceptible to stigmas, discrimination or prejudices, and personally held belief systems.

We don’t allow targeting users based on identity and belief, as outlined in the following sensitive interest categories. Depending on the targeting feature used, you also may not be allowed to promote products and services in the following sensitive interest categories.

You are responsible for ensuring that your ads comply with policy where required. See below for specific examples of what we don't allow.

Sexual interests

We understand that sexual interests are inherently private and, depending on cultural norms, not often candidly discussed. We believe in maintaining the privacy of a user’s sexual interests, so we don’t allow personalised advertising that targets users based on their personal sexual interests, experiences, activities or preferences. Such interests include sexual behaviour, activities or products used when having sex. Additionally, we don’t allow categories that are sexually suggestive or intended to sexually arouse.

We don’t allow targeting users based on sexual interests, as outlined in the following sensitive interest categories. Depending on the targeting feature used, you also may not be allowed to promote products and services in the following sensitive interest categories.

You are responsible for ensuring that your ads comply with policy where required. See below for specific examples of what we don't allow.

Learn more about how to fix ads with policy violations.

Limited personalisation

Access to opportunities

We believe that access to social and economic opportunities is fundamental for individual well-being, social status and quality of life. We also recognise that historic discrimination and societal biases have resulted in some segments of society having unequal access to these opportunities.

Therefore, in an effort to improve inclusivity for users disproportionately affected by society’s biases, we don’t allow some categories of products or services to be targeted to specific audiences. This is in addition to existing ads policies that prohibit discrimination and personalised ads policies that prohibit use of identity and belief categories. See below for specific examples of what we don't allow.

Countries: United States, Canada

The following criteria may not be used to target housing, employment, and consumer finance ads in the United States and Canada:

Gender, age, parental status, marital status targeting (all options must be set to 'Enable')

ZIP code targeting

Housing in personalised ads

Homes for sale or rental, where a home is defined as a place where a person would reside. This includes products or services enabling the sale or rental of homes.

Examples (non-exhaustive): Housing listing sites, real estate services, individual houses for sale or rental (all types of housing including flats, mobile homes, house boats, retirement residential communities, etc.)

Employment in personalised ads

Employment opportunities or hiring a person for a job*

Examples (non-exhaustive): Ads for jobs, job recruitment sites, job listing sites.

*A subset of predetermined US government advertisers may use personalised ads targeting that would otherwise be restricted under access to opportunities, in order to promote employment, so long as the targeting is based on a bona fide occupational qualification for a government job, which is defined under US law as a qualification that is reasonably necessary for normal function of the job.

Consumer finance in personalised ads

Offers relating to credit, banking products and services, or certain financial planning and management services

Examples (non-exhaustive): Credit cards and loans, banking and current accounts, debt management products.

Options to fix: Access to opportunities

If this policy is affecting your ad, review your options to fix below.

Ensure that your ads, site or app comply with access to opportunities personalised advertising policies to serve ads in the United States and Canada. Note that even if ads are not targeted using sensitive categories, some types of ad content are still prohibited.

After reviewing all of the policies and ensuring that your targeting complies with policy, there are three options to become compliant with the policy:

Edit your ad text and site or app to comply with this policy

• Remove content from your site or app that would bring you in scope of the access to opportunities policy. You'll then need to request a review of your ads directly from your Google Ads account before moving on to the next step of checking your targeting countries and targeting methods.
• Remove that content from your ad. If your ad content brings you in scope of the access to opportunities policy, remove it.

1. In your Google Ads account, click the Campaigns icon .
2. Click the Campaigns drop-down in the section menu.
3. Click Ads.
4. Hover over the ad or asset and click Edit.
5. Edit the ad or asset so that it complies with the policy.
6. Click Save. Your ad will be automatically reviewed again. Check the ad’s status in the 'Ads and assets' page for updates.

Edit your ad targeting to comply with this policy

If your ads target the United States and/or Canada, confirm that your ad does not use the following restricted targeting criteria for housing, employment and consumer finance ads: ZIP code targeting, gender, age, parental status, marital status or demographic targeting.

If any of the restricted targeting criteria are used, edit the targeting to comply with policy by setting all demographics to 'Enable' and removing ZIP code targeting.

After the non-compliant targeting methods are removed or edited to comply, appeal the policy decision on your ads directly from your Google Ads account to request a new review.

Appeal policy decision

If you've fixed your destination or believe that we've made an error, appeal the policy decision directly from your Google Ads account to request a review. After we confirm that the destination is compliant, we can approve your ads. If you aren't able to fix these violations or choose not to, remove your ad to help prevent your account from becoming suspended in the future for repeated policy violations.

Personalised advertising data collection and use policies

These policies define requirements for data collection and use in personalised ads. They apply in addition to the Google Ads policies for data collection and use.

You aren't allowed to do the following:

Run ads that collect or contain personally identifiable information (PII), unless using an ad format provided by Google and designed for that purpose

Examples (non-exhaustive): Collecting email addresses, telephone numbers or credit card numbers within the ad itself

Use PII in connection with any anonymous or pseudonymous data, including in remarketing lists, cookies or data feeds.

Share PII with Google through remarketing tags or any product data feeds that might be associated with ads

Send Google precise location information without first obtaining users' consent

Use a remarketing list that targets an overly narrow or specific audience. This includes the case where combining a remarketing list with other targeting criteria (such as geographic limitations or other user segmentation) results in an ad targeted to a relatively small number of users. Learn more about remarketing list size requirements.

For remarketing

• You can choose to disable the collection of remarketing data for users who do not wish to view personalised ads by using the parameter: allow_ad_personalization_signals. Learn more about how to modify the global site tag to Disable the collection of personalised advertising data for specific users.
• When using remarketing, re-engagement or similar segments features, you're required to include specific information in your privacy policy.
• Google may include in-ad notice labels to disclose personalised advertising to our users, and we may display to users which remarketing lists they're on, along with the corresponding domain name. You must not modify or obscure these notices. If you want to implement your own in-ad notice, it must only be done in compliance with relevant industry standards.
• Google won't allow another advertiser to use your remarketing lists or similar segments lists without your consent.

Options to fix ad violations

If this policy is affecting your ad, review your options to fix below.

Ensure that your ads, site or app comply with personalised advertising policies. Note that even if ads are not targeted using sensitive categories, some types of ad content are still prohibited.

After reviewing all of the policies and ensuring that your ads comply with policy, there are there options to become compliant with the policy:

Edit your ad text and site or app to comply with this policy

• Remove that content from your site or app. If your site or app has content that we don't allow personalisation on, remove all content that doesn’t comply with the personalised ads policy. You'll then need to request a review of your ads directly from your Google Ads account before moving on to the next step of checking your audience lists.
• Remove that content from your ad. If your ad violates the personalised ads policy, edit it to make it comply.

1. In your Google Ads account, click the Campaigns icon .
2. Click the Campaigns drop-down in the section menu.
3. Click Ads.
4. Hover over the ad or asset and click Edit.
5. Edit the ad or asset so that it complies with the policy.
6. Click Save. Your ad will be automatically reviewed again. Check the ad’s status in the 'Ads and assets' page for updates.

Once you edit and save your ad, it's sent for review. Most ads are reviewed within 1 working day, though some can take longer if they need a more complex review. If you've removed the unacceptable content from your ad and its destination, you can request a review of your ad.

Edit your ad targeting to comply with this policy

Disassociate or remove ad groups that target advertiser-curated audiences or remarketing lists. Ensure that the ads using these targeting audiences or lists comply with personalised advertising policies. If the ads do not comply with personalised advertising policies, please remove the ad groups or targeting that uses the audience or remarketing lists.

After the non-compliant targeting methods are removed or amended to comply, appeal the policy decision on your ads directly from your Google Ads account to request a new review.

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