Google’s 2023 Ads Security Report revealed that it blocked or removed 12.7 million advertiser accounts last year, nearly double the previous 12 months.
In addition, the search engine blocked or removed 5.5 billion ads for violating its policies, up slightly from the previous year.
Why we care Cracking down on fraudulent accounts is critical to brand safety and also helps ensure a safer space for consumers to transact online with confidence. However, there is also a potential risk associated with AI, as it can mistakenly suspend real advertisers and ads.
The conclusions of the report. In the 2023 Google Ads Security Report, Google found:
Google has blocked or removed 206.5 million ads for violating our misrepresentation policy, which includes many scam tactics. Google has blocked or removed 273.4 million ads for violating our financial services policy. Google has blocked or removed more than 1 billion ads for violating its policy against ad network abuse, which includes promoting malware. Google has blocked or restricted ad serving on more than 2.1 billion publisher pages. Google took broader site-level enforcement action on more than 395,000 publisher sites, a significant increase from 2022.
Updates Google stated that scams and fraud across all platforms increased in 2023. To counter these threats, it implemented 31 updates to its ad and publisher policies, including:
Updating your suitability controls so that advertisers can more easily and quickly exclude topics they want to avoid across YouTube and Display inventory. Updated its misrepresentation policy to allow Google to quickly suspend accounts of bad actors. Launch of its limited ad serving policy, which is designed to protect users by limiting the reach of advertisers Google is less familiar with. Launch of the Ads Transparency Center, where users can easily search and find ads from verified advertisers across multiple platforms, including Search, YouTube and Display.
AI. In the report, Google highlighted how AI plays a crucial role in its efforts to combat bad actors. By using AI, Google claims it can identify and suspend fraudulent accounts before they enter its platforms, or remove them as soon as they are detected.
Moving forward. Google didn’t share exact details about what future updates we can expect heading into 2024, but the search engine confirmed it would continue to invest in policy, detection and enforcement.
appeals. If you disagree with Google’s decisions and don’t believe your ad violated Google’s policies, you can appeal any enforcement action. Google will review your appeal and, if it determines that it made a wrong decision, will use these instances to improve its systems.
What Google says. Duncan Lennox, vice president and general manager of ad privacy and security, said in a statement:
“Our goal is to catch bad ads and suspend fraudulent accounts before they reach our platforms or remove them immediately once they’re detected. AI is improving our app on all fronts.” “To put AI’s impact on this work into perspective: last year more than 90% of publisher page-level application started with the use of machine learning models, including our last LLMs”.
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deep dive. Read Google’s 2023 Ads safety report in full for more information.
