What’s changing about Google Ads

Starting June 2021, Google’s updating their policy regarding advertising for healthcare and medicines. Already, pharmaceutical companies are only allowed to advertise prescription drugs in Canada, New Zealand, and the US, and they’re not allowed to advertise opioid prescription painkillers in any countries. The list of countries where they can advertise over-the-counter medications is larger, but still includes fewer countries than where you can’t advertise over-the-counter medicine.

Similarly, online pharmacies have to be certified in order to run ads on Google.

What will be new with Google’s update? Now, health insurance companies are required to get certified in order to run ads. The one exception is government advertisers, who will be exempt from the certification process.

But what does the certification process entail?

To become certified, a health insurance provider must identify themselves as such to G2, a risk-management and fraud and malware monitoring company which Google entrusts to validate legitimate providers. In this process they must certify they’re permitted to sell and, through extension, promote health insurance, and whether or not they’re registered with the US government to do the same with Affordable Care Act-compliant plans. G2 does charge a fee for this process, which depends on how many locales in which the insurance company does business.

Once certified, a provider must subscribe for continuous monitoring in order for G2 to ensure they remain up-to-date with their licensing legitimacy, which carries a further subscription fee. Without this, an insurance provider cannot run ads on Google.

What do you need to do?

Luckily, if you’re reading this and you’re just a non-healthcare-related business, you don’t have to do anything! Complying with the new G2 Google Ads updates is solely a concern for health insurance companies — although if you’re a digital marketer with clients in health insurance, obviously then you’ll have to deal with it. And for what it’s worth, while this new certification process only applies to insurance providers, if your business is in an adjacent field it’s still a good idea to keep an eye on things in case there are any spillover effects.

On the other hand, health insurance companies of course need to go through this process. If you fall under this category, you will not be able to run ads on Google until registering and getting certified by G2. Enrollment opened on May 3rd, 2021, so if you’re an insurance provider who hasn’t already done so, you’re late: enforcement of this new Google policy started on Jun 2nd.

If your business isn’t in health insurance, don’t worry a bit (and also, why are you still reading this? In the words of Ferris Bueller, it’s over! Go home!) But if this affects your company, get on it as soon as possible.