PALM BEACH, FL – According to the horse’s mouth, the Google Ads advertising program, responsible for about 40% of the total advertising seen online, will be rolling out a new feature which will allow users to see exactly who is behind an advertisement, while requiring businesses to verify their legal status in their state through documentation such as articles of incorporation, in order to purchase ads throughout the platforms reach.
The move, in my opinion, is late in the game and necessary as Facebook has been verifying pages and gathering personal identification on the persons who run ads for some time now, otherwise reach is limited, or ads do not even run. Such is the case for ads which target Social Issues, Elections or Politics.
Facebook verification also applies for persons running pages with “large audiences” with the process of getting verified requiring photo ID, passports, and other legal documents.
Imagine that, you can’t even post messages as a Page owner on Facebook if you have an unusually high reach on the platform.
Get authorized to manage Pages with large audiences. Pages allow businesses, causes and communities to connect with their audiences around the world. We want these connections to be genuine and authentic, especially on Pages with large audiences. If you manage a Page with a large audience you may be asked to confirm your identity and secure your account through a new Page Publishing Authorization process.
How did I find out about Facebook’s large audience verification requirement? With this Political satire meme which went viral:
For Google to have not stepped up to the plate with an equivalent, would have been unwise and would have let Facebook become a more transparent advertising space, something Google obviously cannot let happen.
An image Google shared about the change is below:
The change should be rolled out pretty slowly giving advertising account holders and agencies time to get properly verified before disabling accounts, as Google expects the process to take a few years to complete.
We will start by verifying advertisers in phases in the U.S. and continue to expand globally. Because we are working closely with our advertising partners to scale the program while continuing to ensure we are surfacing helpful information to our users, we expect that this process will take a few years to complete
That’s a really long time to roll out a transparency initiative – so my guess is that they plan to allow lots of time to not lose even one-dollar from disabled accounts while this process rolls out from advertiser to advertiser so there is plenty of time for hand holding of account holders who have trouble getting verified. That’s my guess.
About The Author: John Colascione is Chief Executive Officer of Internet Marketing Services Inc. He specializes in Website Monetization, is a Google AdWords Certified Professional, authored a ‘how to’ book called ”Mastering Your Website‘, and is a key player in several Internet related businesses through his search engine strategy brand Searchen Networks®
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