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Personalized advertising is a powerful tool that improves the relevance of ads that people see and increases ROI for advertisers. It works by targeting groups of people based on specific criteria you select, then either including or excluding them from an audience. There are restrictions to how you can use targeting when promoting within certain categories to avoid negatively impacting user experience. Refer to Categories with targeting restrictions for more details.
Learn how to Check the review status of an ad or asset .
In this article
Categories with targeting restrictions
You are responsible for ensuring your ads comply with policy where required. If you advertise in one or more of these categories, you’ll need to comply with targeting restrictions. Refer to all categories that relate to your ads for details.
(US and Canada only)
Restrictions to these categories help ensure equitable access
- Abuse and trauma
- Alcohol
- Birth control
- Clinical trial recruitment
- Commission of a crime
- Gambling
- Health
- Imposing negativity
- Location-based gambling
- Marginalized groups
- Negative financial status
- Political affiliation
- Political content
- Race and ethnicity
- Relationship hardships
- Religious beliefs
- Restricted drug terms
- Sexual content
- Sexual orientation
- Trade union membership
- Transgender identification
Types of targeting restrictions
The types of products and services you promote will determine the targeting settings you're allowed to use for your ads. If you are not promoting anything within the categories listed on this page, you can use both predefined Google audiences and your own advertiser-curated audiences, though other restrictions may apply.
Targeting restrictions to Sensitive interest categories
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 predefined Google audiences are expressly configured without sensitive user signals, all advertisers are allowed to use them, even if they promote sensitive interest categories.
Refer to the following non-exhaustive list of targeting features and how personalized ads policies apply.
| Advertiser-curated audiences These audiences cannot be used if promoting in sensitive interest categories, because they may inadvertently contain sensitive user signals. 3 |
Predefined Google audiences These audiences can be used even if promoting in sensitive interest categories, because the sensitive user signals are automatically excluded from them. 3 |
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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 cannot 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 personalized advertising of any kind, including serving based on Predefined Google Audiences. Advertisers using advertiser-curated audiences are prohibited from uploading customer information from viewers of child-directed content.
4. Custom Segment audiences using sensitive creative assets or pointing to sensitive landing pages will only serve with Display campaigns to non-sensitive audiences or contextually. All other campaigns using Custom Segment audiences with sensitive creative assets or landing pages will not be eligible to serve.
Targeting restrictions to Access to opportunities categories (US and Canada)
These restrictions are designed to help ensure equitable access to opportunities in Housing, Employment, and Consumer finance in the United States and Canada. The categories have limited personalization for certain demographics.
Targeting dos & don’ts for Access to opportunities categories (non-exhaustive)
You can use predefined Google audiences, excluding the demographics listed below
In the United States and Canada, you can't target audiences using:
- Gender
- Age
- Parental status
- Marital status
- ZIP codes
Targeting geographic locations
using radius, as well as city and country-based targeting is allowed. Radius targeting requires setting at least 1 km around any given location. For Canada, the first 3 letters of postal code (FSA), is acceptable for ad targeting.
Learn more About audience segments including descriptions of the terms used above. Learn more about targeting and how to use it.
Data collection and use in personalized advertising
These requirements for data collection and use in personalized ads are 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 that’s 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 information, including in your data segments (previously called remarketing), cookies, or data feeds.
- Share PII with Google through your data segments tags or any product data feeds that might be associated with ads.
- Send Google precise location information without first obtaining users' consent.
- Use your data segments in a way that targets an overly narrow or specific audience. This includes the case where combining your data segments 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 the size of your data segments .
For your data segments:
- You can choose to disable the collection of data segments for users who do not wish to view personalized ads by using the parameter: allow_ad_personalization_signals. Learn more about how to modify the global site tag to Disable the collection of personalized advertising data for specific users.
- When using your data segments, re-engagement, or similar segments features, learn what to include in your privacy policy for your data segments .
- Google may include in-ad notice labels to disclose personalized advertising to people, and may display which of your data segments 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 data segments or similar segments lists without your consent.
Options to fix ads in Sensitive interest categories
If your ads are flagged for the personalized advertising policy, you should review your site or app as well as your ad content to ensure if they fall in this policy. You then have 3 options to fix your ads.
Option 1: Edit your ad targeting
Review and remove any advertiser-curated audiences from the targeting settings of your ad. Check the targeting settings of ad groups, asset groups, and campaigns to make sure they aren't using these audiences either.
Option 2: Edit or remove content that falls within this policy
- From your siteor app
- From your ads
How to edit your ad content
- Go to Ads
within the Campaigns
menu.
- Hover over the ad or asset and select Edit.
- Edit the ad or asset so that it complies with the policy.
- Select Save.
Your ad will be automatically reviewed again. Check the ad’s status in the "Ads & assets" page for updates.
Learn more about how to Fix an ad with policy violations .
Option 3: Appeal the policy decision
If you believe there’s been an error and that your site or app or ads don’t fall under this policy, appeal the policy decision directly from your Google Ads account to request a review. If the review determines that your ads are compliant, they can run again. 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.
Options to fix ads in "Access to opportunities" categories
If your ads are flagged for personalized ads policy, you should review your site or app as well as your ad content to ensure if they fall in this policy. You then have 3 options to fix your ads.
Option 1: Edit your ad targeting
If your ads target the United States or Canada:
- Set all demographics (gender, age, parental status, marital status) to “Enable”.
- Remove any ZIP code targeting.
Option 2: Edit or remove content that falls within this policy
- From your siteor app.
- From your ads.
How to edit ad content
- Go to Ads
within the Campaigns
- Hover over the ad or asset and select Edit.
- Edit the ad or asset so that it complies with the policy.
- Select Save.
Your ad will be automatically reviewed again. Check the ad’s status in the "Ads & assets" page for updates.
Learn more about how to Fix an ad with policy violations .
Option 3: Appeal the policy decision
If you believe there’s been an error and that your site or app or ads don’t fall under this policy, appeal the policy decision directly from your Google Ads account to request a review. If the review determines that your ads are compliant, they can run again. 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.
Google Ads policy information
Google's personalized ads policies work in combination with other policies across Ads and all of Google. You are responsible for ensuring your ads comply with the policy. Google's privacy policy applies to all Google features and dictates how Google collects, uses, and protects user data. Learn what happens if you violate our policies . Advertisers are also required to comply with our policies for European Union user consent , where applicable.
