{"id":78150,"date":"2025-10-16T10:13:06","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T10:13:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/78150\/"},"modified":"2025-10-16T10:13:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T10:13:06","slug":"google-says-you-need-certification-for-prescription-drug-advertising","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/78150\/","title":{"rendered":"Google says you need certification for prescription drug advertising"},"content":{"rendered":"

Google Ads is rolling out a major policy change around how advertisers can use prescription drug terms, marking one of the biggest shifts in healthcare ad regulation on the platform in years.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s new. Starting Oct. 29, Google will restrict the use of prescription drug terms in ads, landing pages, and keywords, with different rules depending on location.<\/p>\n

In the U.S., Canada, and New Zealand: advertisers may promote prescription drugs if compliant with local laws. Certification is now required to keyword-target prescription terms, applying to online pharmacies, telemedicine providers, and pharmaceutical manufacturers.<\/p>\n

Everywhere else: Promotion of prescription drugs is banned. Only non-promotional uses (e.g., public health notices, academic research) are allowed. Certain certified businesses may still keyword-target these terms.<\/p>\n

Enforcement begins Oct. 29, and Google will ramp up over four to six weeks. Advertisers will receive a seven-day warning before any account suspension.<\/p>\n

\"1760459811772\"<\/p>\n

What they\u2019re saying. There have been either mixed or unhappy reactions to this update from the industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cPretty wild Google Ads update! You now must be certified to keyword target prescription drug terms. Keywords used to be fair game \u2014 this is a big shift, especially for mass tort advertisers.\u201d said Anthony Higman, founder and CEO of AdSquire: <\/p>\n

\u201cHow does this even work with broad or phrase match? Even if you avoid a drug name, won\u2019t AI or PMax variants still trigger it?\u201d replied Google Ads Coach, Jyll Saskin Gales <\/p>\n

SEM strategist Abby Nelson found the update ironic: \u201cWe used to need LegitScript certification just for mentioning prescription terms on a landing page. Now broad match pulls in drug terms like Botox \u2014 and ads are still getting approved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why we care. Advertisers may face higher compliance costs and stricter oversight. Healthcare marketers will need certification before targeting any drug-related keywords. Legal advertisers could see disruption in campaigns tied to pharma or mass tort cases.<\/p>\n

Bottom line. Google\u2019s tightening grip on healthcare ads marks a new era of compliance-first marketing, where even keyword targeting isn\u2019t safe without the right certification.<\/p>\n

First seen. The update was first spotted by Higman when he shared the above letter he got from Google on LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n Search Engine Land is owned by Semrush<\/a>. We remain committed to providing high-quality coverage of marketing topics. Unless otherwise noted, this page\u2019s content was written by either an employee or a paid contractor of Semrush<\/a> Inc.\n <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Anu\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\tAnu Adegbola has been Paid Media Editor of Search Engine Land since 2024. She covers paid search, paid social, retail media, video and more. In 2008, Anu’s career started with delivering digital marketing campaigns (mostly but not exclusively Paid Search) by building strategies, maximising ROI, automating repetitive processes and bringing efficiency from every part of marketing departments through inspiring leadership both on agency, client and marketing tech side. Outside editing Search Engine Land article she is the founder of PPC networking event – PPC Live and host of weekly podcast PPC Live The Podcast.
\nShe is also an international speaker with some of the stages she has presented on being SMX (US, UK, Munich, Berlin), Friends of Search (Amsterdam, NL), brightonSEO, The Marketing Meetup, HeroConf (PPC Hero), SearchLove, BiddableWorld, SESLondon, PPC Chat Live, AdWorld Experience (Bologna, IT) and more.\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Google Ads is rolling out a major policy change around how advertisers can use prescription drug terms, marking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78151,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[163,85,46,482,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-78150","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-medication","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-israel","11":"tag-medication","12":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}