Last month, Google announced a planned update to their Personalized Advertising Policies specific to Housing, Employment, and Credit ads, effective October 19th, 2020.

Google’s new policies will affect real estate entrepreneurs that target their ad campaigns using demographics that may be interpreted as biased. While Google’s official announcement doesn’t detail all limitations, their notification suggests the elimination of exclusions for gender, age, and marital or parental status, as well as zip code.

According to Google, these changes are intended to improve inclusivity for users affected by societal biases.

“In an effort to improve inclusivity for users disproportionately affected by societal biases; housing, employment, and credit products or services can no longer be targeted to audiences based on gender, age, parental status, marital status, or ZIP code.” – Google Support’s update to Personalized Advertising Policies posted August, 2020. 

Google pointed out examples which included housing listing sites, individual houses for sale or rent, and real estate services, as sectors expected to be impacted by their upcoming changes.

Expected Changes Include:

• Targeting specific zip codes will no longer be available
• Excluding specific zip codes will no longer be available
• Excluding specific demographics will no longer be available

Following the October 19th, 2020 update, advertisers will be required to comply with Google’s new policies.

Real estate entrepreneurs that used zip codes, among other filters to target their advertising campaigns must agree to comply with Google’s new update before creating any new ads. Additionally, existing campaigns using the newly restricted targeted criteria must be modified before advertisers can place ads.

What Should You Do Next?

Since this is a fairly new policy, advertisers using the selected criteria may consider making these changes as quickly as possible to modify their existing campaigns to be in compliance with Google’s new rules.

Since criteria used in the past may no longer be available, advertisers should look at alternatives when targeting their audience.

Instead of using specific zip codes or excluding them, marketers suggest considering regions such as state, county, town or city. To further filter your targeted audience, consider other criteria that represent your demographics but are not societal biased.

Marketers suggest updating ad copy to include negative keywords that would limit your ads to desired groups. They also suggest utilizing ad extensions to better communicate your product or service. Images or niche copy may help.

While it isn’t clear if some criteria, such as income levels, will be excluded, creatively revising your campaigns would help minimize the impact of this new policy and target your desired audience.

Now’s the time to develop a strategic plan so your ad campaigns don’t skip a beat.

Need Help With Your Campaign?

If you need help finding more leads, ask us how we can help you drum up more business. We have a suite of solutions that are made to solve everyday problems real estate entrepreneurs like you might have. Learn more about our solutions at RealEstateInvestor.com.