In an effort to improve the quality of ads and user experience, Google adjusted its adwords trademark policy in the U.S. to allow some ads to use trademarks in the ad text. This change will bring Google’s policy on trademark use in ad text more in line with the industry standard.
As stated by Google:
“Under certain criteria, you can use trademark terms in your ad text in the U.S. even if you don’t own that trademark or have explicit approval from the trademark owner to use it. This change will help you to create more narrowly targeted ad text that highlights your specific inventory.”
”For example, under our old policy, a site that sells several brands of athletic shoes may not have been able to highlight the actual brands that they sell in their ad text. However, under our new policy, that advertiser can create specific ads for each of the brands that they sell. We believe that this change will help both our users and advertisers by reducing the number of overly generic ads that appear across our networks in the U.S.”
Please note that this policy change will only apply to ads served in the U.S. on Google.com and to U.S. users on the Search and Content Networks. Also, while Google will start accepting new ads that contain trademark terms as of 11am PDT on May 15th, those ads will not begin showing until June 15th.
If some of our ads have been disapproved due to Google’s trademark policy (the previous one) and that comply with the new policy, we may submit those ads for re-review and eligible ads may begin showing in the U.S. starting June 15th. Click here for more information on editing the ad text.
In order to help advertisers understand whether their landing pages meet the Google’s policy guidelines they have added some new functionality to their Search Based Keyword Tool. We can visit www.google.com/sktool and enter your website URL, to see a list of brands on the left side of the page if our site contains those brands. When we click on any of those brands we’ll notice a column titled “Extracted from webpage.” Those landing pages may be opportunities for us to show re-sale or informational ads.
According to Google:
“We believe that this change will offer our advertisers the opportunity to provide users with more relevant information, choice and options while respecting the interests of trademark owners.”
